United States v. Mosley’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

54 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. “a substantial risk that the offense would be committed by a person other than one ready to commit it.”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Dickens · United States v. Tobias

2. “[W]hen a defendant testified that he obtained the contraband from a government undercover agent, the Government must produce the undercover agent ... to take the case to the jury.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Kummer · Coffey v. State

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