United States v. Freeman’s Empirical Analysis
357 F.2d 606 · 1966
Citation profile
128 federal appellate · 8 district · 73 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 228 later decisions — most recently July 2013 · most notably 35 Cal. 3d 329 - People v. Fields (1983), United States v. Brawner (1972)
128 federal appellate · 8 district · 73 state decisions — followed in 28 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 Escobedo v. Illinois · Leland v. Oregon · Davis v. United States · International Ass'n of Machinists v. Duckworth · Durham 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 228 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law.”
34 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“... it cannot be presumed that juries will check their common sense at the courtroom door.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"Because M'Naghten focuses only on the cognitive aspect of the personality, i.e., the ability to know right from wrong, we are told by eminent medical scholars that it does not permit the jury to identify those who can distinguish between good and evil but who cannot control their behavior. The result is that instead of being treated at appropriate mental institutions [footnote omitted] for a sufficiently long period to bring about a cure or sufficient improvement so that the accused may return with relative safety to himself and the community, he is ordinarily sentenced to a prison term as if criminally responsible and then released as a potential recidivist with society at his mercy. To the extent that these individuals continue to be released from prison because of the narrow scope of M'Naghten, that test poses a serious danger to society's welfare. [footnote omitted]. "Similarly, M'Naghten's single track emphasis on the cognitive aspect of the personality recognizes no degrees of incapacity. Either the defendant knows right from wrong or he does not and that is the only choice the jury is given. But such a test is grossly unrealistic; our mental institutions, as any qualified psychiatrist will attest, are filled with people who to some extent can differentiate between right and wrong, but lack the capacity to control their acts to a substantial degree. As the commentary to the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code observes, `The law must recognize that when there is n”
4 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.