Melendez v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1996
Citation profile
237 federal appellate · 11 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 497 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2024 · most notably Harris v. United States (2002), United States v. Green (2006)
237 federal appellate · 11 district ·
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. Melendez (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. · Wade v. United States · Trident Associates Ltd. Partnership v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. · In re Disbarment of Hurley
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 497 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Upon motion of the Government, the court shall have the authority to impose a sentence below a level established by statute as a minimum sentence so as to reflect a defendant’s substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“assure that the guidelines reflect the general appropriateness of imposing a lower sentence than would otherwise be imposed, including a sentence that is lower than that established by statute as a minimum sentence, to take into account a defendant's substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Upon motion of the government stating that the defendant has provided substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense, the court may depart from the guidelines.”
4 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.