Sherman v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1958
Citation profile
2,235 federal appellate · 54 district · 1,045 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,756 later decisions (40 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2024 · most notably United States v. O'Brien (1968), United States v. Russell (1973)
2,235 federal appellate · 54 district · 1,045 state decisions — followed in 49 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
reviewedUnited States v. Sherman (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on McNabb v. United States · Sorrells v. United States · Olmstead v. United States · New Yorker Magazine, Inc. v. Gerosa
Cited together with Sorrells v. United States · United States v. Russell · Masciale v. United States · Hampton v. United States · Lopez 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 3,756 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The function of law enforcement is the prevention of crime and the apprehension of criminals. Manifestly, that function does not include the manufacturing of crime.”
122 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“police conduct revealed in the particular case falls below standards, to which common feelings respond, for the proper use of governmental power.”
23 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“The power of government is abused and directed to an end for which it was not constituted when employed to promote rather than detect crime and to bring about the downfall of those who, left to themselves, might well have obeyed the law. Human nature is weak enough and sufficiently beset by temptations without government adding to them and generating crime.”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.