Dillon v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

30 federal appellate · 4 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 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The indictment did not charge, nor did the evidence show, that defendant merely failed to pay a tax or failed to make a return. On the contrary, the evidence showed that a return was filed and a tax was paid. No evidence was offered that defendant failed to file a return or to show the willful failure to pay the tax when due, except insofar as willfulness was involved in the charged willful and felonious attempt to evade the payment of taxes owed. Hence the universal rule that it is not error to fail to instruct on an offense not presented by the evidence applies. There consequently was no error in failing to instruct that defendant might have been convicted of either of the misdemeanors defined by § 145(a), of'willful failure to pay a tax when due or willful failure to file a return.””

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

2. ““§ 7207 is entirely different from § 3616. * * * Section 7207 appears in the statutory context with other offenses relating to income tax offenses. It is sufficiently broad to apply to both income tax derelictions as well as to those subjects other than income taxes with which § 3616 was in juxtaposition. The only substantive portion of § 3616 which was retained and carried forward in the 1954 revision was placed with income tax derelictions. And then the element of willfulness, absent in § 3616 but previously consistently present in offenses relating to income tax violations, was inserted. “ * * * We conclude that Congress did not intend by § 3616(a) that a nonwillful inaccurate and ip-so facto false statement in an income tax return, frequently very complicated, should constitute a crime. It only made such a false statement a misdemeanor when, by § 7207, it required that the statement be willfully made and known to be fraudulent or false as to a material matter.” (Emphasis supplied.)”

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

3. ““The taxpayer’s costs and other factors which would lessen his tax liability are peculiarly within his own knowledge. Accordingly, the law has placed upon him the burden of going forward with the evidence once the Government has established receipts in excess of those reported in his income tax return. * * * “This rule is grounded on the realization that it would be virtually impossible for the Government to show the negative fact that a taxpayer had no unreported deductions or exclusions. In such a case the Government, having shown unreported income, is aided by the presumption that the deductions and exclusions listed by a taxpayer in his return are all that exist.””

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