United States v. Jackson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 1 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “As for the question whether Jackson “inflicted” an injury on Scott: the jury was entitled to conclude that he did. Jackson contends that the word “inflict” means a deliberate plan to produce a consequence, and that an accidental harm is “caused” but not “inflicted.” Sensible jurors could have concluded that Jackson did want to harm the deputy marshals. Escape was impossible once the officers’ cars blocked Jackson’s. What could have been the point of this skirmish other than a desire to hurt the captors? Jackson could not have foreseen the particular injury that occurred, but he could have foreseen (and may well have desired) that some harm would come to the deputy marshals.... Doubtless “inflict” is more restrictive than “cause”; if Jackson had not resisted, but Scott had tripped on his untied shoelaces while walking over to apply handcuffs, it would not make sense to say that Jackson had “inflicted” an injury. But the actual injury occurred while Scott was grappling with Jackson, who applied force directly to Scott’s person. This satisfies the normal understanding of “inflict.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 752 F. Supp. 2d 801 - United States v. Zabawa