Burton v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

571 federal appellate · 100 district · 136 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 1,024 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““There might be an agreement to receive compensation for services to be rendered without any compensation ever being in fact made, and yet that agreement would be covered by the statute as an offense, or, compensation might be recéived for the forbidden services without any previous agreement, and yet the statute would be violated. In this case, the subject-matter of the sixth count-, which charged an agreement to receive $2,-500, was more extensive than that charged in the seventh count, which alleged the receipt of $500. But Congress intended to place its condemnation upon each distinct, separate part of every transaction coming within the mischiefs intended to be reached and remedied. Therefore an agreement to receive compensation was made an offense. So the receiving of compensation in violation of the statute, whether pursuant to a previous agreement or not, was made another and separate offense. There is, in our judgment, no escape from this interpretation consistently with the established rule that the intention of the Legislature must govern in, the interpretation of a statute. ‘It is the Legislature, not the court, which is to define a crime, and ordain its punishment.’ United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76 , 95 [ 5 L. Ed. 37 ]; Hackfeld & Co. v. United States, 197 U. S. 442 , 450 [ 25 S. Ct. 456 , 49 L. Ed. 826 ].””

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Kelly v. United States · United States v. De Large

2. ““Tbe petitioner relies on those provisions of the Constitution of the United States which declare that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to be tried by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed. Article 3, § 2; Amendments, art. 6. But the right thereby secured is not a right to be tried in the district where the accused resides, or even in the district m which he is personally at the time of committing the crime, but in the district ‘wherein the crime shall have been committed.’ * * * When a crime is committed partly in one district and partly in another, it must, in order to prevent an absolute failure of justice, be tried in either district, or in that one which the Legislature may designate ; and Congress has accordingly provided that, ‘when any offense against the United States is begun in one judicial district and completed in any other, it shall be deemed to have been committed in either, and may be dealt with, inquired of, tried, determined, and punished in either district, in the same manner as if it had been actually and wholly committed therein.’ Rev. Stat. § 731.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Robinson v. United States · Gretsch v. United States

3. ““But we cannot doubt the authority of Congress by legislation to make it an offense against the United States for a senator, after his election and during his continuance in office, to agree to receive or to receive compensation for services to be rendered or rendered to any person, before a department of the government, in relation to a proceeding, matter, or thing in which the United States is a party or directly or indirectly interested.” (Italics added.)”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Waldin · United States v. Myers