United States v. Jacobs’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 federal appellate · 4 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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Indeed, an unforeseeable judicial enlargement of a criminal statute, applied retroactively, operates precisely like an ex post facto law, such as Art. I, sec. 10, of the Constitution forbids. An ex post facto law has been defined by this Court as one “that makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action,” or “that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed.” Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386 , 390, 1 L.Ed. 648 . If a state legislature is barred by the Ex Post Facto Clause from passing such a law, it must follow that a State Supreme Court is barred by the Due Process Clause from achieving pre cisely the same result by judicial construction. Cf. Smith v. Cahoon, 283 U.S. 553 , 565, 51 S.Ct. 582 , [586] 75 L.Ed. 1264 . The fundamental principle that “the required criminal law must have existed when the conduct in issue occurred,” Hall, General Principles of Criminal Law (2d ed. 1960), at 58-59, must apply to bar retroactive criminal prohibitions emanating from courts as well as from legislatures. If a judicial construction of a criminal statute is “unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which had been expressed prior to the conduct in issue,” it must not be given retroactive effect.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Goodheim

2. “holding improper warrants based on the conclusionary opinion of a police officer that books or films are “obscene,” and requiring a prior independent judicial determination of the probable obscenity of particular items to be seized, is misplaced. Those cases seek to limit the discretion of the police to make ad hoc determinations of obscenity because such a procedure threatens to suppress protected material. The items named in this warrant were evidentiary materials, and their seizure did not threaten to deprive the public of access to protected material.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. United States v. Torch