United States v. Watson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

45 federal appellate · 1 district · 13 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 71 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(1) evidence that the Government initiated the crime, regardless of the amount of pressure applied to the defendant, and (2) any evidence negating the defendant’s propensity to commit the crime.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Jannotti · United States v. Jannotti

2. ““This conclusion is consistent with the Supreme Court’s reaffirmation that the focus of the entrapment defense is on the predisposition of the defendant rather than on the nature of the police behavior. U. S. v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 429 , 93 S.Ct. 1637, 1641 , 36 L.Ed.2d 366 (1973). In ducement does not become irrelevant to either party, to be sure, since the stronger the inducement, the more likely that any resulting criminal conduct of the defendant was due to the inducement rather than to the defendant’s own predisposition. Under the unitary approach we require, inducement therefore enters as an element of predisposition which the Government must disprove, rather than as an independent element which the defendant must prove.” ( 489 F.2d at p. 511 .)”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Jannotti · 501 F. Supp. 1182 - United States v. Jannotti

3. ““It will be seen also that under the questionable instruction, the jury was not permitted to acquit the accused unless it ‘should find from the evidence’ that there existed the necessary elements of the defense. (Emphasis added) This was improper, since in requiring that the jury ‘should find’ certain facts, the existence of which were made indispensable to acquittal, a definite, conclusive, determination of disputed factual issues was required of the jury as a condition to acquittal. Such a requirement was erroneously imposed. The appellant was indeed entitled to acquittal if the jury ‘should find’ that he ‘had no previous intent or purpose to commit’ the . offense ‘and did so only because he was induced or persuaded by some agent of the Government’. But he was also entitled to be acquitted if, from the evidence, the jury, because of the entertainment of reasonable doubt, should be unable to ‘find’ that the necessary elements of the defense had not been excluded. In reaching our conclusion, we have been mindful of obligation to consider the instructions in their entirety. The jury was properly informed, in a general instruction, as to the burden of proof which rested upon the prosecution; however, we cannot assume that it carried the advice of the general instruction into application to the instruction emphasizing the specific elements of the defense. The possibility that there was confusion or misunderstanding is strengthened, not eliminated, by view of the instructions as ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. McInturff v. State