United States v. Sinclair’s Empirical Analysis
438 F.2d 50 · 1971
Citation profile
22 federal appellate · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 46 later decisions — most recently August 2022 · most notably United States v. Martinez (1985), Amiker v. Drugs for Less, Inc. (2000)
22 federal appellate · 20 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 Glasser v. United States · Isbell Enterprises, Inc. v. Citizens Casualty Co. of New York · MacKenna v. Ellis · Odom v. United States · Deschenes 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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The motion, however, is addressed to the discretion of the court, which should be exercised with caution, and the power to grant a new trial should be invoked only in exceptional cases in which the evidence preponderates heavily against the verdict.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In these circumstances it cannot be said that Sinclair was prejudiced by what took place in the trial judge’s chambers. On the contrary, he was spared the risk of injury which might have occurred had Kreyger blurted out his whole story in the presence of the jury or had overzealous counsel extracted' from Kreyger the hearsay testimony incriminating Sinclair. Although one can imagine cases when the presence of witnesses in chambers might be regarded as a stage of a trial at which a defendant would have the right to be present under the Sixth Amendment or F.R.Crim.P. 43, the meeting in chambers here was (1) not prejudicial to Sinclair (2) was in the nature of a conference on a point of law and (3) in any event, was agreed to, without objection, by the defendant through his attorney.” 438 F. 2d at 52.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Brown v. State“[T]he power to grant a new trial ... should be invoked only in exceptional cases in which the evidence preponderates heavily against the verdict.”). 19 . United States v. Tarango, 396 F.3d 666 , 672 (5th Cir.2005) (”
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.