United States ex rel. Fournier v. Pinto’s Empirical Analysis
408 F.2d 539 · 1969
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently February 2017
4 federal appellate · 3 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 Douglas v. Alabama · Namet v. United States · Goldberg v. Meridor · United States v. Maloney · Fletcher 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Many courts that have considered episodes of this kind in varying circumstances have found that the refusal of a prosecution witness to answer all, or all but the most innocuous, questions tends to prejudice the defendant. United States v. Tucker, 3rd Cir. 1959, 267 F.2d 212 ; Fletcher v. United States, 1964, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 137 , 332 F.2d 724 ; United States v. Amadio, 7th Cir. 1954, 215 F.2d 605 . ‘When a witness claims his privilege, a natural, indeed an almost inevitable inference arises as to what would have been his answer if he had not refused. If the prosecution knows when it puts the question that he will claim the privilege, it is charged with notice of the probable effect of his refusal on the jury’s mind.’ United States v. Maloney, 2d Cir. 1959, 262 F.2d 535, 537 . “At the same time we are mindful of the observation of the Supreme Court that ‘none of the several decisions dealing with this question suggests that reversible error is invariably committed whenever the prosecution causes a witness to claim his privilege not to answer in the presence of the jury. Rather, the lower courts have looked to the surrounding circumstances in each case, focusing primarily on two factors, each of which suggests a distinct ground of error. First, some courts have indicated that error may be based upon a concept of prosecutorial misconduct, when the Government makes conscious and flagrant attempt to build its ease out of inferences arising from the use of the testimonial privil”
2 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.