United States v. Cody’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

40 federal appellate · 2 district · 20 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 65 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “* * * This determination can be made other than through the defendant's own statements. As pointed out in McCarthy , the Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules has suggested three methods of determining that a factual basis exists for a guilty plea: (1) inquiring of the defendant, (2) inquiring of the prosecutor, and (3) examining the presentence report. (Citation). The government's argument that this was fulfilled by the prosecutor reading from the indictment in the presence of the defendant falls far short of demonstrating any factual basis for the defendant's plea. * * *.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ryan v. Iowa State Penitentiary, Ft. Madison · State v. Watson

2. “prejudice inheres in a failure to comply with Rule 11, for non-compliance deprives the defendant of the Rule’s procedural safeguards that are designed to facilitate a more accurate determination of the voluntariness of his plea. Our holding that a defendant whose plea has been accepted in violation of Rule 11 should be afforded the opportunity to plead anew not only will insure that every accused is afforded those procedural safeguards, but also will help reduce the great waste of judicial resources required to process the frivolous attacks on guilty plea convictions that are encouraged, and are more difficult to dispose of, when the original record is inadequate. It is, therefore, not too much to require that, before sentencing defendants to years of imprisonment, district judges take the few minutes necessary to inform them of their rights and to determine whether they understand the action they are taking.”

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

3. ““Requiring this examination of the relation between the law and the acts the defendant admits having committed is designed to ‘protect a defendant who is in the position of pleading voluntarily with an understanding of the nature of the charge but without realizing that his conduct does not actually fall within the charge V ””

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