Douglas v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
239 F.2d 52 · 1956
Citation profile
149 federal appellate · 2 district · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 161 later decisions — most recently February 2008 · most notably McDonald v. United States (1962), Lyles v. United States (1957)
149 federal appellate · 2 district · 7 state decisions
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 Davis v. United States · Curley v. United States · Bryan v. United States · Durham v. United States · Tatum v. United States
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 161 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ * * * ‘their [the jury’s] judgment should not be disturbed on the ground it is contrary to expert psychiatric opinion.’ [Citation.] We agree, but this is not authority for disregarding expert testimony. It must be considered with the other evidence, not arbitrarily rejected. A jury may not be upheld in arbitrarily convicting of crime. We as the reviewing court must be able to say that the result is rationally consistent with the evidence, measured by the required degree of proof. * * * ””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ * * * the court may pesnnit the jury to consider whether or not the accused understood the nature of what he was doing and whether or not his actions were due to a failure, because of mental disease or defect, properly to control his conduct.” (Emphasis added.)”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The institution which applies our inherited ideas of moral responsibility to individuals prosecuted for crime is a jury of ordinary men. These men must be told that in order to convict they should have no reasonable doubt of the defendant’s sanity. After they have declared by their verdict that they have no such doubt their judgment should not be disturbed on the ground it is contrary to expert psychiatric opinion. Psychiatry offers us no standard for measuring the validity of the jury’s moral judgment as to culpability. To justify a reversal circumstances must be such that the verdict shocks the conscience of the court.””
1 later decision 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.