United States v. McMannus’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

51 federal appellate ·

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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “fails to consider a relevant factor that should have received significant weight, gives significant weight to an improper or irrelevant factor, or commits a clear error of judgment by arriving at a sentence outside the limited range of choice dictated by the facts of the case.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. McDonald · United States v. Gnavi

2. “We then went on to acknowledge that the appropriate degree of sentencing reduction cannot be calculated with mathematical precision and that there is a range of reasonableness available to the district court in any given case.... It may be that we have placed too great an emphasis on numerical or percentage lines in conducting the reasonableness inquiry with respect to sentencing reductions .... It may also be that the use of the term “extraordinary” suggests a false dichotomy. The term as applied to reductions should not be read to suggest a true dichotomy in which the location of an imaginary line demarcating “ordi nary” from “extraordinary” may be divined by a statistical inquiry. Rather than representing a term of art with unique legal significance, the “extraordinary” label more accurately serves as a convenient characterization of departures that we have considered particularly large relative to the two to four offense level adjustments generally envisioned by the structure of the sentencing guidelines for mitigating or aggravating circumstances.”

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

3. “While we can identify factors that may warrant a minor variance from the guidelines range, e.g., McMannus put himself through community college while on pretrial release, see 18 U.S.C. § 3553 (a)(1), we find nothing in the record which would justify a variance of this magnitude under § 3553(a). The sentence selected by the district court, a 58 percent variance, was outside the range of reasonableness.”

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