United States v. Leon’s Empirical Analysis
534 F.2d 667 · 1976
Citation profile
226 federal appellate · 2 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 299 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2021 · most notably Sanabria v. United States (1978), United States v. Gallo (1985)
226 federal appellate · 2 district · 3 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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1511 · 18 U.S.C. § 1955 · 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) · 18 U.S.C. § 371 · 18 U.S.C. § 891
Relies on Glasser v. United States · Griffin v. California · Berger v. United States · Donnelly v. DeChristoforo · Iannelli 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 299 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) whether the remarks tended to mislead the jury or to prejudice the accused; (2) whether they were isolated or extensive; (3) whether they were deliberately or accidentally placed before the jury; and (4) the strength of the evidence against the accused.”
29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(a) Whoever conducts, finances, manages, supervises, directs, or owns all or part of an illegal gambling business shall be fined not more than $20,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. (b) As used in this section— (1) “illegal gambling business” means a gambling business which— (i) is a violation of the law of a State or political subdivision in which it is conducted; (ii) involves five or more persons who conduct, finance, manage, supervise, direct, or own all or part of such business and (iii) has been or remains in substantially continuous operation for a period in excess of thirty days or has a gross revenue of $2,000 in any single day. (2) “gambling” includes but is not limited to pool-selling, bookmaking, maintaining slot machines, roulette wheels or dice tables and conducting lotteries, policy, bolita or numbers games, or selling chances therein. (3) “State” means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and any territory or possession of the United States. (Emphasis added).”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a finding of guilt may be based on circumstantial evidence which does not 'remove every reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt.' " Id. at 358 (citation omitted). Thus, even if there is a plausible hypothesis of innocence, a finding of guilt may still be made if it is also a reasonable conclusion. 17 In the present case, when the evidence is construed in the light most favorable to the government, it must be taken as a fact that Agent O'Brien saw defendant in possession of a container later found to contain heroin. By its verdict, the jury found this evidence to be credible. The jury could reasonably conclude that one does not handle a McDonald styrofoam box containing heroin unless one is part of a conspiracy to possess and distribute heroin. 18 Special Agent O'Brien testified that in his 5 years experience as a special agent with the DEA and 13 years with the Detroit Police Department, he had been involved in 200-300 narcotics arrests. He explained that consumption amounts of heroin typically are found in amounts of a "few grams”
3 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.