United States v. White’s Empirical Analysis
486 F.2d 204 · 1973
Citation profile
55 federal appellate · 1 district · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 74 later decisions — most recently August 2015 · most notably United States v. Bagaric (1983), United States v. Modica (1981)
55 federal appellate · 1 district · 6 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. § 113
Relies on Berger v. United States · United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. · Rogers v. Loether · Viereck v. United States · De Leon 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 74 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor — -indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“When, as in the instant case, the trial is short and devoid of any other claims of error, seemingly trivial prosecutorial impropriety may stand out in bold relief.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“few injudicious words uttered in the heat of battle by an Assistant United States Attorney”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.