Collins v. Beto’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

45 federal appellate · 4 district · 30 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 100 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““* * * if a mere showing that a confession during a period of unlawful detention was voluntary’ were sufficient to establish its admissibility, Wong Sun would be an empty promise, for the inadmissibility of ‘involuntary’ confessions has long been fully recognized.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Betrand Appeal · 22 Ill. App. 3d 741 - People v. Riszowski

2. “The rebuke that “[t]he criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered” People v. Defore, 1926, 242 N.Y. 13, 21 , 150 N.E. 585, 587 (Cardozo, J.), cert, denied 270 U.S. 657 , 46 S.Ct. 353 , 70 L.Ed. 784 , was long the shibboleth of the opponents of the exclusionary rule in a debate which has now been authoritatively resolved. It is indisputably a policy of our society that criminals be speedily apprehended and justly convicted. But in pursuing this aim we must sedulously avoid prejudicing other, and higher, goals. One such goal is certainly a cutting down of the incidence of unlawful conduct against private persons by public officials. “In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperilled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means — to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.” Olmstead v. United States, 1928, 277 U.S. 438, 485 , 48 S.Ct. 564, 575 , [ 72 L.Ed. 944 ] 66 A.L.R. 376 (Brandeis, J., dissenting.) Public br”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 251 F. Supp. 99 - United States v. Brennan

3. “* * * The issue whether the police, though lacking enough evidence to justify arrest and incarceration, may not request or even demand that a person suspected of serious crime accompany them to a suitable place of interview for a reasonable period of investigation is so important and the proper answer so doubtful, see e. g., Watts v. State of Indiana, 338 U.S. 49, 58, 61-62 , 69 S.Ct. 1347 , 93 L.Ed. 1801 (1949) (concurring and dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Jackson); Culombe v. Connecticut, supra, 367 U.S. at 576-581, 81 S.Ct. 1860 (opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter); United States ex rel. Corbo v. La Vallee, 270 F.2d 513, 518 (2 Cir. 1959), cert. denied, 361 U.S. 950 , 80 S.Ct. 403 , 4 L.Ed.2d 382 (1960); United States v. Vita, 294 F.2d 524, 528-530 (2 Cir. 1961), cert. denied, 369 U.S. 823 , 82 S.Ct. 837 , 7 L.Ed.2d 788 (1962); United States v. Middleton, 344 F.2d 78 (2 Cir. 1965); United States v. Bonanno, 180 F.Supp. 71 (S.D.N.Y.), rev’d on other grounds, 285 F.2d 408 (2 Cir. 1960); LaFave, Arrest, 300-18, 343-53 (1965), that resolution of that issue also should await a ease where the task cannot be avoided. * * * [Collins v. Beto, 348 F.2d 823, 836 (5th Cir. 1965) (concurring opinion of Friendly, J., sitting by designation) ].”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. United States v. Ketchum