United States v. Onan’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 federal appellate · 9 district · 5 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 62 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Any person, corporation or association willfully disobeying any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of any district court of the United States or any court of the District of Columbia, by doing any act or thing therein, or thereby forbidden, if the act or thing so done be of such character as to constitute also a criminal offense under any statute of the United States or under the laws of any State in which the act was committed, shall be prosecuted for such contempt as provided in section 3691 of this title and shall be punished by fine or imprisonment, or both. “Such fine shall be paid to the United States or to the complainant or other party injured by the act constituting the contempt, or may, where more than one is so damaged, be divided, or apportioned among them as the court may direct, but in no case shall the fine to be paid to the United States exceed, in case the accused is a natural person, the sum of $1,000, nor shall such imprisonment exceed the term of six months. “This section shall not be construed to relate to contempts committed in the presence of the court, or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice, nor to contempts committed in disobedience of any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command entered in any suit or action brought or prosecuted in the name of, or on behalf of, the United States, but the same, and all other cases of contempt not specifically embraced in this section may be punished in conform”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re Grand Jury Subpoena "Custodian of Records Amalgamated Meat Cutters & Butcher Workmen of North America, AFI-CIO Local 248"

2. ““ * * * The section of the applicable statute (section 21 Judicial Code, title 28 USCA § 25) provides that ‘no such affidavit [an affidavit of bias and prejudice] shall be filed unless accompanied by a certificate of counsel of record that such affidavit and application are made in good faith.’ The phrase ‘counsel of record’ in the statute means an attorney at law admitted to the bar in the case. One who is not a member of the bar cannot be counsel of record even though the record on its face may show he had undertaken to appear as counsel. Since Mr. Payne was not on the date of the filing of either of the affidavits a member of the bar of the court, he could not then or at any earlier time have been counsel of record in the case for either of the affiants. The purpose of the provision of the statute requiring certificate of good faith by counsel of record is that the court may be assured that the affidavit is made in good faith through the certificate to that effect made by one who is a sworn officer of the court, regularly admitted as an attorney to practice at the bar of the court. The requirement is not technical. It is one of the essential requirements of the statute. As the affidavits were not certified to be made in good faith by counsel of record, the motions to strike 4 them for insufficiency in law were properly sustained and Judge Otis ‘having,’ as he stated, ‘no consciousness whatever of any prejudice against any of the parties or in favor of any,’ the duty to con”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 245 F. Supp. 772 - United States v. Hoffa

3. “They are laymen, and while Section 232, Title 31, United States Code Annotated, provides that such suit 'may be brought and carried on by any person,' we do not think that Congress could have intended to authorize a layman to carry on such suit as attorney for the United States but must have had in mind that such a suit would be carried on in accordance with the established procedure which requires that only one licensed to practice law may conduct proceedings in court for anyone other than himself. . . . The practice of law is affected with a public interest and an attorney at law as distinguished from a layman, has both public and private obligations, being sworn to act with all good fidelity toward both his client and the court. Counsel of record, as the term is used in Section 144, Title 28, United States Code, has an obligation which he owes to the court as well as to his client, and he owes a public duty to aid the administration of justice, to uphold the dignity of the court and respect its authority.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Phillips v. Tobin