United States v. Wright’s Empirical Analysis
540 F.3d 833 · 2008
Citation profile
12 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently May 2025
12 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 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. § 1158 · 18 U.S.C. § 2245 (§ 60010 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994) · 18 U.S.C. § 2246 · 18 U.S.C. § 3500 · 18 U.S.C. § 5031 · 18 U.S.C. § 5032
Relies on Palermo v. United States · United States v. Plenty Arrows · United States v. Granados · United States v. Demarrias · United States v. Berndt
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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]hen Plenty Arrows was decided in 1991, “sexual act” required penetration or contact with the mouth. Today, however, the term “sexual act” is broader. Penetration is not required, as the definition of sexual act includes “the intentional touching, not through the clothing, of the genitalia of another person who has not attained the age of 16 years with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.... ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Unlike in Plenty Arrows, the government • here did not need to establish Wright took a substantial step toward penetrating [the victim], Wright’s conviction stands if he took a substantial step toward the commission of “the intentional touching, not through the clothing, of the genitalia of’ [the victim].”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“necessary to clarify testimony ... and to establish the precise physiological details of sexual assault.”
1 later decision 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.