Lutwak v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1,871 federal appellate · 130 district · 506 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 2,876 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A defendant is entitled to a fair trial but not a perfect one.”

   37 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. McDonough Power Equipment, Inc. v. Greenwood · Snead v. United States

2. ““We do not believe that the validity of the marriages is material. No one is being prosecuted for an offense against the marital relation. We consider the marriage ceremonies only as a part of the conspiracy to defraud the United States and to commit offenses against the United States. In the circumstances of this case, the ceremonies were only a step in the fraudulent scheme and actions taken by the parties to the conspiracy. By directing in the War Brides Act that ‘alien spouses’ of citizen war veterans should be admitted into this country, Congress intended to make it possible for veterans who had married aliens to have their families join them in this country without the long delay involved in qualifying under the proper immigration quota. Congress did not intend to provide aliens with an easy means of circumventing the quota system by fake marriages in which neither of the parties ever intended to enter into the marital relationship; that petitioners so believed is evidenced by their care in concealing from the immigration authorities that the ostensible husbands and wives were to separate immediately after their entry into this country and were never to live together as husband and wife. The common understanding of a marriage, which Congress must have had in mind when it made provision for ‘alien spouses’ in the War Brides Act, is that the two parties have undertaken to establish a life together and assume certain duties and obligations. Such was not the case here, or s”

   15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Weinberg · United States v. Diogo

3. ““But such declaration can be used against the co-conspirator only when made in furtherance of the conspiracy.””

   11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Yokely v. United States · Connelly v. United States