United States v. Shaffer’s Empirical Analysis
472 F.3d 1219 · 2007
Citation profile
31 federal appellate · 3 district · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 69 later decisions — most recently May 2024 · most notably United States v. Cooper (2011), United States v. Perrine (2008)
31 federal appellate · 3 district · 8 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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 2252A (§ 101 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996)
Relies on Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. · Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. · Mills v. United States · United States v. Mathenia · United States v. Visinaiz
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 69 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Although the defendant] may not have actively pushed pornography on [other users of the peer-to-peer file sharing program], ... he freely allowed them access to his computerized stash of images and videos and openly invited them to take, or download, those items. It is something akin to the owner of a self-serve gas station. The owner may not be present at the station, and there may be no attendant present at all. And neither the owner nor his or her agents may ever pump gas. But the owner has a roadside sign letting all passersby know that, if they choose, they can stop and fill their cars for themselves, paying at the pump by credit card. Just because the operation is self-serve ... we do not doubt for a moment that the gas station owner is in the business of "distributing," "delivering," "transferring[,]" or "dispersing" gasoline; the raison d'être of owning a gas station is to do just that. So, too, a reasonable [factfinder] could find that [the defendant] welcomed people to his computer and was quite happy to let them take child pornography from it.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“knowing[] recei[pt] or distribut[ion] [of] any child pornography that has been mailed, or shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“peer-to-peer networks [were originally] employed to store and distribute electronic files by universities, government agencies, corporations, and libraries, among others.”
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.