United States v. Hawk’s Empirical Analysis
497 F.2d 365 · 1974
Citation profile
47 federal appellate · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 55 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2008 · most notably United States v. Pomponio (1976), United States v. Conforte (1980)
47 federal appellate · 4 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
Relies on Spies v. United States · Sansone v. United States · United States v. Murdock · Lubin v. Allison · United States v. Mitchell
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 55 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Wjillfulness requires proof that the act was done with knowledge it was wrongful. The Court discussed a number of ways of expressing this type of specific intent, and among the terms mentioned were “bad purpose” and “evil motive.” However, neither bad purpose nor evil motive is an independent element of a willful failure to file under § 7203. The term “evil motive” is merely a “convenient shorthand expression to distinguish liability based on conscious wrongdoing from liability based on mere carelessness or mistake.” Thus the term expresses, in a brief way, the more cumbersomely stated concept of specific intent in Murdock, a concept the instructions must ultimately convey. This, we think, was all that Murdock- and Bishop-meant by the use of that term.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Now, we come to specific intent and willfulness. The specific intent of willfulness is an essential element of the crime of failing to make an income tax return. The term “willfully” used in the statute . . . means voluntary, purposeful, deliberate, and intentional as distinguished from accidental, inadvertent, or negligent. Mere negligence, even gross negligence, is not sufficient to constitute willfulness under this criminal law. . The failure to make a timely return is willful if the defendant’s failure to act was voluntary and purposeful and with the specific intent to fail to do what the law requires (sic) to be done; that is to say, with the bad purpose to disobey or disregard the law that requires him to disclose to the Government facts and (sic) material to the determination of his income tax liability. . There is no necessity that the Government prove that the defendant had the intention to defraud it or to evade the payment of any taxes for the defendant’s failure to file to be willful under this provision of law. That is, the intention to avoid the law or to pay the taxes constitutes the crime charged by each of these counts as long as it is willful and knowing as I have defined the term for you. On the other hand, the defendant’s conduct is not willful if you find that he failed to file a return because of negligence, inadvertence, accident, or due to his good faith misunderstanding of the requirements of the law, if there was such misunderstanding. (Emphasis adde”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The term willfully used in the statute which I have read to you, that is, referring to one who willfully fails to make such a return, means voluntary, purposeful, deliberate and intentionally, (sic) as distinguished from accidental, inadvertent, or negligent. Mere negligence, even gross negligence, is not sufficient to constitute willfulness under the criminal law. The failure to make a timely return is willful if the defendant's failure to act was voluntary and purposeful, and with the specific intent to fail to do what he knew the law requires to be done; that is to say, with a bad purpose or evil motive to disobey or disregard the law which requires to (sic) file a timely return which discloses to the government facts material to the determination of his tax liability. There is no necessity that the government prove that the defendant had an intention to defraud it, or to evade the payment of any taxes, for the defendant's failure to file to be willful under this provision of the law. On the other hand, the defendant's conduct is not willful if you find that he failed to file a return because of negligence, in advertence, accident or reckless disregard for the requirements of the law, or due to his good faith misunderstanding of the requirements of the law.”
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.