Alston v. Com.’s Empirical Analysis
2007
Citation profile
43 state decisions
Relationships
Applies 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on United States v. Booker · Apprendi v. New Jersey · Blakely v. Washington · United States v. Salerno · Cunningham v. California
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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Under the rule of statutory construction of statutes in pari materia, statutes are not to be considered as isolated fragments of law.... [T]hey should be so construed as to harmonize the general tenor or purport of the system and make the scheme consistent in all its parts and uniform in its operation, unless a different purpose is shown plainly or with irresistible clearness.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“[i]t is a cardinal rule of construction that statutes dealing with a specific subject must be construed together in order to arrive at the object sought to be accomplished”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“When the language of a statute [or rule] is unambiguous, we are bound by the plain meaning of that language.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.