United States v. William Rabinowich’s Empirical Analysis
238 U.S. 78 · 1915
Citation profile
569 federal appellate · 59 district · 118 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 974 later decisions (87 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2025 · most notably Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. (1970), Pinkerton v. United States (1946)
569 federal appellate · 59 district · 118 state decisions — followed in 29 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Hyde v. United States · Williamson v. United States · Burton v. United States · Morgan v. Devine
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 974 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“For two or more to confederate and combine together to commit or cause to be committed a breach of the criminal laws, is an offense of the gravest character, sometimes quite outweighing, in injury to the public, the mere commission of the contemplated crime. It involves deliberate plotting to subvert the laws, educating and preparing the conspirators for further and habitual criminal practices. And it is characterized by secrecy, rendering it difficult of detection, requiring more time for its discovery, and adding to the importance of punishing it when discovered.”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(a) person may be guilty of conspiring although incapable of committing the objective offense.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The historical difference between the conspiracy and its end has led this Court consistently to attribute to Congress “a tacit purpose — in the absence of any inconsistent expression — to maintain a long-established distinction between offenses essentially different, — a distinction whose practical importance in the criminal law is not easily overestimated.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.