Sears v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
343 F.2d 139 · 1965
Citation profile
141 federal appellate · 2 district · 28 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 203 later decisions — most recently March 2025 · most notably United States of America v. James Slaughter (2000), United States v. Martino (1981)
141 federal appellate · 2 district · 28 state decisions — followed in 19 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.
Relationships
Relies on Sorrells v. United States · Sherman v. United States · Rogers v. United States · Williamson v. United States · United States v. Virgil D. Dardi, Robert B. Gravis, Charles Rosenthal and Charles Berman
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 203 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“as it takes two to conspire, there can be no indictable conspiracy with a government informer who secretly intends to frustrate the conspiracy.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[i]n view of the posture of the evidence and the charge actually given by the court, the jury may well have actually believed that it could convict Sears simply by believing that he agreed with [the government informant] and accepted bribes from him.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[A] government informer may serve as the connecting link between conspirators.”
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.