United States v. Bryan’s Empirical Analysis
339 U.S. 323 · 1950
Citation profile
551 federal appellate · 160 district · 289 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,610 later decisions (65 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2024 · most notably United States v. Nixon (1974), United States v. Calandra (1974)
551 federal appellate · 160 district · 289 state decisions — followed in 36 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
reviewedBryan v. United States (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 3486 (§ 248 of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) · 2 U.S.C. § 192 · 2 U.S.C. § 194
Relies on Edwin Hale v. William Henkel · Counselman v. Hitchcock · Brown v. Walker · Blair v. United States
Cited together with United States v. Nixon · Trammel v. United States · Branzburg v. Hayes · Blair v. United States · Elkins 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 1,610 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'the public ... has a right to every man's evidence.'”
61 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The debates attending enactment of the statutes here in question and the decisions of this and other federal courts construing substantially identical statutes make plain the fact that Congress intended the immunity therein provided to apply only to past criminal acts concerning which the witness should be called to testify. The offense of contempt of Congress, with which we are presently concerned, on the other hand, matures only when the witness is called to appear before the committee to answer questions or produce documents and wilfully fails to do so. Until that moment he has committed no crime. There is, in our jurisprudence, no doctrine of “anticipatory contempt.” While the witness’ testimony may show that he has elected to perjure himself or commit contempt, he does not thereby admit his guilt of some past crime about which he has been summoned for questioning but commits the criminal act then and there.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Every person who having been summoned as a witness by the authority of either House of Congress to give testimony or to produce papers upon any matter under inquiry before either House, or any joint committee established by a joint or concurrent resolution of the two Houses of Congress, or any committee of either House of Congress, willfully makes default, or who, having appeared, refuses to answer any question pertinent to the question under inquiry, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not more than $1,000 nor less than $100 and imprisonment in a common jail for not less than one month nor more than twelve months.””
2 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.