United States v. Romano’s Empirical Analysis
1965
Citation profile
461 federal appellate · 24 district · 295 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 883 later decisions (31 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2017 · most notably Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera (1966), Sandstrom v. Montana (1979)
461 federal appellate · 24 district · 295 state decisions — followed in 37 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. Romano (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co. · Tot v. United States · United States v. Universal C. I. T. Credit Corp. · Bozza v. United States · Sinclair 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 883 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““no rational connection between the fact proved and the ultimate fact presumed, if the inference of the one from proof of the other is arbitrary because of lack of connection between the two in common experience.... [WJhere the inference is so strained as not to have a reasonable relation to the circumstances of life as we know them, it is not competent for the legislature to create it....” (quoting Tot v. United States, 319 U.S. 463 , 63 S.Ct. 1241 , 87 L.Ed. 1519 (1943)).”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(w)hat invalidates an inference or presumption on due process grounds is a 'lack of connection between' the proven and the inferred facts 'in common experience' the lack of a 'reasonable relation to the circumstances of life as we know them . . . '”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The test to be applied to the kind of statutory inference involved in this criminal case is not in dispute. In Tot v. United States, 319 U.S. 463 , the Court, relying on a line of cases dating from 1910; reaffirmed the limits which the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments place ‘upon the power of Congress or that of a state legislature to make the proof of one fact or group of facts evidence of the existence of the ultimate fact on which guilt is predicated. . . . “. . . Presence tells us only that the defendant was there and very likely played a part in the illicit scheme. But presence tells us nothing about what the defendant’s specific function was and carries no legitimate, rational or reasonable inference that he was engaged in one of the specified functions connected with possession, rather than in one of the supply, delivery or operational activities having nothing to do with possession. Presence is relevant and admissible evidence in a trial on a possession charge; but absent some showing of the defendant’s function at the still, its connection with possession is too tenuous to permit a reasonable inference of guilt — ‘the inference of the one from the proof of the other is arbitrary. . . .’ ””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Robinson v. State · Stone v. State
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.