Pinkerton v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
328 U.S. 640 · 1946
Citation profile
4,539 federal appellate · 292 district · 645 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 7,542 later decisions (118 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. (1970), Roviaro v. United States (1957)
4,539 federal appellate · 292 district · 645 state decisions — followed in 39 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedPinkerton v. United States (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 550 · 26 U.S.C. § 3321
Relies on Kotteakos v. United States · United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. · McNabb v. United States · Hirabayashi v. United States
Cited together with Glasser v. United States · Pereira v. United States · Nye & Nissen v. United States · Kotteakos v. United States · Blumenthal 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 7,542 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It has been long and consistently recognized by the Court that the commission of the substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit it are separate and distinct offenses.”
165 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[i]f two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“A conspirator is guilty of the illegal acts that are done as part of and in furtherance of the conspiracy even though those acts are done solely by co-conspirators. Therefore, if you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that, at the time the assault by the use of a dangerous weapon while attempting to commit bank larceny alleged in Count 2 was committed, the defendant had entered into and continued to be a member of an unlawful conspiracy as charged in Count 1 of the indictment, and if you further find beyond a reasonable doubt that the alleged act charged in Count 2 was committed while the conspiracy continued to exist, was in furtherance of the conspiracy, and was a natural consequence of the conspiracy, then you may find the defendant guilty of the offense charged in Count 2 as a coconspirator even though he was not the person who actually committed the offense charged in Count 2.”
6 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.