United States v. Simpson’s Empirical Analysis
460 F.2d 515 · 1972
Citation profile
55 federal appellate · 2 district · 18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 82 later decisions — most recently February 2025 · most notably United States v. Dellinger (1972), Watts v. United States (1976)
55 federal appellate · 2 district · 18 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1361 · 18 U.S.C. § 2071 · 50 U.S.C. § 3811
Relies on Sparf v. United States · Roberts v. Florida · Horning v. District of Columbia · United States v. Spock · United States v. Moylan
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 82 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'[a]n essential element of the so-called justification defenses [ 2 ] is that a direct causal relationship be reasonably anticipated to exist between the defender's action and the avoidance of harm.'”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The theoretical basis of the justification defenses is the proposition that, in many instances, society benefits when one acts to prevent another from intentionally or negligently causing injury to people or property. That benefit is lost, however, and the theory fails when the person seeking to avert the anticipated harm does not act reasonably.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he statutory requirement of willfulness is satisfied if the accused acted intentionally, with knowledge that he was breaching the statute,”
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.