Robison v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

35 federal appellate · 1 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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The defendant (Griffin) asserts that she was the victim of entrapment after the crime charged in the indictment. “Where a person has no previous intent to violate the law, but is induced or persuaded by law enforcement officers or agents to commit a crime, he is the victim of entrapment, and the law as a matter of policy forbids a conviction in such a case. “On the other hand, where a person already has the readiness and willingness to break the law, the mere fact that Government Agents provide what appears to be a favorable opportunity is no defense, but is a lawful entrapment. When, for example, the Government has reasonable grounds for believing that a person is engaged in the illicit sale of narcotics, it is not unlawful entrapment for a Government Agent to pretend to be someone else and to offer, either directly or through an informer or other decoy, to purchase narcotics from such suspected person. “If, then, the jury should find beyond a reasonable doubt from the evidence in the ease that, before anything at all occurred respecting the alleged offense involved in this case, the defendant was ready and willing to commit crimes such as charged in the indictment, whenever opportunity was offered or afforded, and that Government officers or agents did no more than offer the opportunity, then the jury should find that the defendant is not a victim of entrapment. “On the other hand, if the evidence in the case should leave the jury with a reasonable doubt whether the defend”

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

2. “[The] word of art — ‘entrapment’—embodies one of the most confusing concepts in the law.”

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