United States v. Franzese’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

40 federal appellate · 1 district · 3 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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The Government’s case against them rested almost entirely on the testimony of four confessed participants — Smith, Parks, Cordero and Zaher — who cast defendants in the role of behind-the-scenes operators of a nationwide bank robbery business. Franzese was the general manager; Potere was the procurer and explieator of plans of the banks and took general charge of logistics; Florio assisted in these operations; * * *. What is more troubling is that three of the Government witnesses — Smith, Parks and Zaher — had previously depicted Anthony Polisi, owner of the Aqueduct Motor Inn in Queens, as the master-mind of the same enterprise and had so testified in a trial in January, 1966, wherein Anthony and his son Salvatore were convicted, in contrast to the testimony of Smith, Parks and Cordero at the instant trial that Anthony’s services after mid-July, 1965, were in storing weapons and furnishing a meeting place. This was substantially what Cordero, who had not been called, as a witness against the Polisis, had said in statements to the FBI shortly after his arrest on September 30, 1965. United States v. Franzese, 392 F.2d 954 , at 957. [emphasis added]”

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

2. “In fact the inconsistency was not quite so great as the appellants argue. * * The quartet, dissatisfied with Anthony Polisi’s management, were summoned to a meeting at the Aqueduct Motor Inn on an evening in late July, 1965, attended by all five appellants. [Franzese, Crabbe, Matera, Potere and Florio] Franzese announced that he was taking over, on a 50-50 basis, and that work orders would be issued by his four associates from time to time. The testimony at the Polisi trial as to the robberies of July 7 and 13, both antedating a meeting * * * where Franzese is alleged to have taken over, is consistent with the story told by the Government’s witnesses in this case; the conflict comes with the robbery of the Queens County Federal Savings & Loan Ass’n on July 30. This court affirmed the Polisis’ conviction from the bench in November, 1966; the Government did not disclose its new information as to, Anthony’s less significant role in the Queens County Savings & Loan robbery, [emphasis added]”

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