United States v. Atkinson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

29 federal appellate · 3 district · 2 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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Initially the defendant suggests the unconstitutionality of the Act in its application here. The point is that no Federal authority existed for the punishment of a wholly intrastate possession and distribution. The position is not tenable. Congressional findings on which the legislation rested disclosed that intrastate possession, distribution and sale of drugs such as heroin directly and injuriously effected the introduction of them into other States to the injury of the public health and welfare there. 21 U.S.C. §§ 801 , 812. Thus the statutory definition and proscription of transactions of ‘controlled substances’, 21 U.S.C. § 812 (b), entirely within a State is altogether constitutional. United States v. Lopez, 459 F.2d 949 (5th Cir. 1972). Cf. White v. United States, 399 F.2d 813 (8th Cir. 1968).””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. Montes-Zarate · United States v. Visman

2. “We believe ... the provisions of Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act presently before us clearly constitute a permissible exercise of Congress’s powers under the Commerce Clause. In Section 101 of the Act, 21 U.S.C. § 801 , Congress has summarized the results of its in-depth investigations into the problems of drug abuse in the United States.... Section 101 of the present Act summarizes Congress’s conclusions that illegal intrastate activities involving controlled substances substantially affect interstate commerce and that the effective control of the interstate problem requires that intrastate, as well as interstate, activities be regulated. Perhaps to a greater degree than the extortionate credit transactions which were before the Supreme Court in Perez, the unlawful importation, manufacture, distribution, and possession of controlled substances have thus been found by Congress to have a substantial and direct effect on interstate commerce, although individual instances of these proscribed activities may be strictly intrastate in nature.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. Beuckelaere