BRACY Et Al. v. UNITED STATES’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

44 federal appellate · 3 district · 26 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 107 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Because it seems to me that applicants misconceive the function of the grand jury in our system of criminal justice, I cannot conclude that four Justices of this Court are likely to vote to grant their petition. The grand jury does not sit to determine the truth of the charges brought against a defendant, but only to determine whether there is probable cause to believe them true, so as to require him to stand his trial. Because of this limited function, we have held that an indictment is not invalidated by the grand jury’s consideration of hearsay, Costello v. United States, 350 U.S. 359 , 76 S.Ct. 406 , 100 L.Ed. 397 (1956), or by the introduction of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338 , 94 S.Ct. 613 , 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974). While the presentation of inadmissible evidence at trial may pose a substantial threat to the integrity of that factfinding process, its introduction before the grand jury poses no such threat. I have no reason to believe this Court will not continue to abide by the language of Mr. Justice Black in Costello, supra, 350 U.S. at 363 , 76 S.Ct. at 409: “An indictment re turned by a legally constituted and unbiased grand jury, like an information drawn by the prosecutor, if valid on its face, is enough to call for trial of the charge on the merits. The Fifth Amendment requires nothing more.””

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. Adamo · Anderson v. Secretary for the Department of Corrections