United States v. Fields’s Empirical Analysis
408 F.3d 1356 · 2005
Citation profile
25 federal appellate ·
Relationships
Applies 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on United States v. Booker · Blakely v. Washington · United States v. Rodriguez · United States v. Pirani · United States v. White
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 97 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Application Note 3 to U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1 (b)(1) advises: “The adjustment should be applied if the weapon was present, unless it is clearly improbable that the weapon was connected with the offense.” Once the government shows that a firearm was present, “the eviden-tiary burden shifts to the defendant to show that a connection between the firearm and the offense is clearly improbable.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) the possessor of the firearm was a co-conspirator, (2) the possession was in furtherance of the conspiracy, (3) the defendant was a member of the conspiracy at the time of possession, and (4) the co-conspirator possession was reasonably foreseeable by the defendant.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[I]f it is equally plausible that the error worked in favor of the defense, the defendant loses; if the effect of the error is uncertain so that we do not know which, if either, side it helped the defendant loses. Where errors could have cut either way and uncertainty exists, the burden is the decisive factor in the third prong of the plain error test, and the burden is on the defendant. Where [w]e just don’t know whether the defendant would have received a lesser sentence if the guidelines had been advisory, the defendant has not met his burden of showing prejudice.”
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.