United States v. Van Eyl’s Empirical Analysis
468 F.3d 428 · 2006
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 1 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently August 2023
9 federal appellate · 1 district ·
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 United States v. Boyd · Texas v. New Mexico · Texas v. New Mexico · Wilson v. Williams · United States v. Gillaum
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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The difference between offering testimony for the truth of the matter asserted and offering it to demonstrate why a person took a particular action is a subtle distinction that might be lost on jurors, but that was all the more reason to keep the lines clear, not a reason to cross or blur the line. Nor is there any logic to a contention that the court meant to allow in the rebuttal argument what it found unfairly prejudicial in testimony. The court did not wish to allow lay witnesses to testify about their beliefs that Van Eyl’s actions were unlawful because the court believed the jury would inappropriately use those witnesses’ opinions to determine Van Eyl’s state of mind. Having barred that testimony, the court did not intend to allow the government to bring that theory in through the back door of closing argument. ... Again, the court feared the jury would conclude that if others thought the conduct was wrong, then Van Eyl must have possessed the intent to defraud.... And it was well within the district court’s discretion to exclude lay opinion testimony (and argument utilizing lay opinion testimony) about Van Eyl’s state of mind.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he district court judge is always in a better position than appellate judges to assess the probable reactions of jurors in a case over which that district judge has presided.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[a] defendant is only entitled to a new trial if there is a reasonable possibility that the evidence had a prejudicial effect upon the jury's verdict.”
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.