Blumenthal v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1,792 federal appellate · 53 district · 148 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 2,288 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The case therefore is very different from the facts admitted to exist in the Kotteakos case. Apart from the much larger number of agreements there involved, no two of those agreements were tied together, as stages in the formation of a larger all-inclusive combination, all directed to achieving a single unlawful end or result. On the contrary each separate agreement had its own distinct, illegal end. Each loan was an end in itself, separate from all others, although all were alike in having similar illegal objects. Except for Brown, the common figure, no conspirator was interested in whether any loan except his own went through. And none aided in any way, by agreement or otherwise, in procuring another’s loan. The conspiracies therefore were distinct and disconnected, not parts of a larger general scheme, both in the phase of agreement with Brown and also in the absence of any aid given to others as well as in specific object and result. There was no drawing of all together in a single, over-all, comprehensive plan. ( 332 U.S. at 558 , 68 S.Ct. at 257 ) [Emphasis added]”

   31 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Poliafico v. United States · United States v. Goss

2. “Secrecy and concealment are essential features of successful conspiracy.... Hence the law rightly gives room for allowing the conviction of those discovered upon showing sufficiently the essential nature of the plan and their connections with it, without requiring evidence of knowledge of all its details or of the participation of others.”

   28 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Isaacs v. United States · United States v. Miller

3. ““Perhaps even at best the safeguards provided by clear rulings on admissibility, limitations of the bearing of evidence as against particular individuals, and adequate instructions, are insufficient to ward off the danger entirely. It is therefore extremely important that those safeguards be made as impregnable as possible.” Blumenthal v. United States, 332 U.S. 539 , 559-560, 68 S.Ct. 248 , 257, 92 L.Ed. 154 (1947).”

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. United States v. Lane · United States v. Perez