United States v. Flemmi’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 6 district ·

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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “issued general orders that had the effect of requiring the production of FBI documents memorializing Brian Halloran's claim that Bulger and Flemmi were responsible for the murder of Roger Wheeler. When found by Special Agent Stanley Moody, those documents were given to Barry Mawn, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Boston, to review because, Moody said in an affidavit, they contained information that was "obviously highly singular and sensitive.” They were not, however, produced in discovery in [Salemme ] in time for the key witnesses, Rico and Morris, to be questioned about them. Rather, they were belatedly disclosed after repeated inquiries by the court. Similarly, important FBI documents concerning John McIntyre were also improperly withheld by agents of the Boston FBI until it was too late to question relevant witnesses concerning them.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 686 F. Supp. 2d 147 - United States v. Jones

2. “It is clear to me that Mr. Flemmi would have either been killed or in prison ... if Paul Rico had not tipped him off and encouraged him to flee just before Mr. Flemmi was indicted for the bombing of John Fitzgerald and the murder of Walter Bennett.... [I]f Mr. Flemmi had been prosecuted in 1969 for the Fitzgerald bombing or the William Bennett murder, his role as an FBI informant might have been disclosed and examined more than 30 years ago. But Mr. Rico prevented that from happening.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Davis v. United States

3. “[T]he Attorney General for whom I worked, Edward Levi, issued his informant Guidelines in December 1976, one month before he left office. [The United States Attorney has] acknowledged that, if obeyed, those Guidelines would have prevented the abuses revealed in this case. However, as I found, there was overwhelming evidence that they were routinely disregarded with respect to Flemmi, Bulger, and other Top Echelon informants.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 220 F. Supp. 3d 173 - United States v. DiMasi