Branzburg v. Pound’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 federal appellate · 10 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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Information as used in the statute refers to the things or the matters which a reporter learns and source refers to the method by which or to the person from whom he learns them. “In this case the reporter learned that two men were engaged in the process of making hashish. Their identity, as well as the activity in which they were engaged, was a part of the information obtained by him, but their identity was not the source of the information. “The actual source of the information in this case was the reporter’s personal observation. In addition some informant may have provided him with information that at a certain time and place he could observe the process of conversion of marijuana into hashish. If such was the case we have no doubt that the identity of the informant was protected by the statute. “The reporter, however, was not asked to reveal the identity of any such informant and his privilege from making that disclosure is not in question. He was asked to disclose the identity of persons seen by him in the perpetration of a crime and he refused, urging as a justification for such refusal, that the statute should be given a broad construction extending his privilege against disclosure to all his knowledge of this incident rather than just the source of the knowledge. * * * “In all likelihood the present case is complicated by the fact that the persons who committed the crime were probably the same persons who informed Branzburg that the crime would be, or was being, com”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Glenn R. Funk v. Scripps Media, Inc. · 15 Md. App. 713 - Lightman v. State

2. “"At the outset we observe that at common law no privilege existed in favor of communications made to newsmen. [Cases cited] KRS 421.100 which grants a newsman the privilege against disclosing his source of information is therefore a statute in derogation of the common law. . . . [A] privilege which did not exist at common law cannot be asserted under a statute unless it is clear that the statute was intended to grant the privilege." 461 S.W.2d at 347 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. The Lexington Herald-Leader Co. v. Beard

3. ““No person engaged in, connected with or employed on a newspaper or journal or for any radio or television station shall be compelled to disclose, in any legal proceeding or trial or before any committee of the legislature or elsewhere, the source of any news or information procured or obtained by him for and published in the newspaper or disseminated by the radio or television station on and in which he is engaged, connected with or employed.” 3”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 15 Md. App. 713 - Lightman v. State