United States v. Covington’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
281 federal appellate · 58 district · 36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 535 later decisions (10 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Serfass v. United States (1975), United States v. Sisson (1970)
281 federal appellate · 58 district · 36 state decisions
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 Leary v. United States · Marchetti v. United States · Grosso v. United States · United States v. Borden Co. · Haynes 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 535 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Rule 12 permits pretrial resolution of a motion to dismiss the indictment only when 'trial of the facts surrounding the commission of the alleged offense would be of no assistance in determining the validity of the defense.'”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““An appeal may be taken by and on behalf of the United States from the district courts direct to the Supreme Court of the United States in all criminal cases in the following instances: “From a decision or judgment setting-aside, or dismissing any indictment or information, or any count thereof, where such decision or judgment is based upon the invalidity or construction of the statute upon which the indictment or information is founded.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““We have held today in Leary that the privilege does provide such a defense unless the plea is untimely, the defendant confronted no substantial risk of self-incrimintaion, or the privilege has been waived.””
1 later decision 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.