Craig v. Hecht’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

87 federal appellate · 7 district · 27 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 286 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““I concur fully in the opinion of the Court. It is of primary importance that the right freely to comment on and criticize the action, opinions and judgments of courts and judges should be preserved inviolate; but it is also essential that courts and judges should not be impeded in the conduct of judicial business by publications having the direct tendency and effect of obstructing the enforcement of their orders and judgments, or of impairing the justice and impartiality of verdicts. * * * If the publication is intended and calculated to obstruct and embarrass the court in a pending proceeding in the matter of the rendition of an impartial verdict, or in the carrying out of its orders and judgments, the court may, and it is its duty to protect the administration of justice by punishment of the offender for contempt. “The federal statute concerning con-tempts as construed by- this court in prior cases vests in the trial judge the jurisdiction to decide whether a publication is obstructive or defamatory only.””

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Sullens · Dufenhorst v. Aitkin

2. “a judge may not hold in contempt one “who ventures to publish anything that tends to make him unpopular or to belittle him.... ” The vehemence of the language used is not alone the measure of the power to punish for contempt. The fires which it kindles must constitute an imminent, not merely a likely, threat to the administration of justice. The danger must not be remote or even probable; it must immediately imperil.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Craig v. Harney · Smith v. Pace

3. “... the delicacy there is in the judge's deciding whether an attack upon his own judicial action is mere criticism or real obstruction, and the possibility that impulse may incline his view to personal vindication, are manifest”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 179 Ind. App. 37 - Jacobsen v. State · 15 Cal. 2d 99 - The Times-Mirror Co. v. Superior Court