United States v. Aguilar’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
430 federal appellate · 53 district · 24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 769 later decisions (23 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably United States v. Lanier (1997), Giles v. California (2008)
430 federal appellate · 53 district · 24 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedUnited States v. Aguilar (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1503 · 18 U.S.C. § 1512 · 18 U.S.C. § 2232 · 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) · 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Jackson v. Virginia · United States v. Bass · United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co. · United States v. Batchelder · Swift Company v. United States
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 769 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he action taken by the accused must be with an intent to influence judicial or grand jury proceedings; it is not enough that there be an intent to influence some ancillary proceeding, such as an investigation independent of the court’s or grand jury’s authority.... [T]he act must have a relationship in time, causation, or logic with the judicial proceedings. In other words, the endeavor must have the natural and probable effect of interfering with the due administration of justice.... [I]f the defendant lacks knowledge that his actions are likely to affect the judicial proceeding, he lacks the requisite intent to obstruct.”
50 later decisions quote this exact passage“[§ 1503] makes conduct punishable where the defendant acts with an intent to obstruct justice, and in a manner that is likely to obstruct justice, but is foiled in some way.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a fair warning should be given to the world in language that the common world will understand, of what the law intends to do if a certain line is passed”
7 later decisions 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.