United States v. Polizzi’s Empirical Analysis
2008
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 5 district · 3 state decisions
Relationships
Applies 12 U.S.C. § 617 (§ 25a of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913) · 12 U.S.C. § 630 (§ 25a of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913) · 15 U.S.C. § 1245 · 15 U.S.C. § 1825 · 15 U.S.C. § 8 (Wilson Tariff Act) · 16 U.S.C. § 414 · 18 U.S.C. § 1028A · 18 U.S.C. § 1111
Relies on United States v. Booker · Blakely v. Washington · In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Taylor v. United States · Gregg v. Georgia
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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he jury of that time had a large role in what we think of as sentencing, that is, in determining the sanction. In a significant fraction of the cases that went to trial, the real issue was whether the jury would choose to exercise its power to “value” stolen goods in ways that would affect the applicable sanction. It was understood that the value that the jury assigned was fictional, and that the jury was in truth deciding whether to rescue the culprit from the ordinary sanctions of transportation and death by so characterizing the crime that only a lesser sanction could be invoked. If the goods were valued below 12 pence (in practice the Old Bailey juries used the figure of 10 pence), the crime became petty larceny, hence a misdemeanor, and the convict escaped with a whipping or a short jail term. Under certain circumstances the jury could, by valuing goods below other monetary ceilings, bring the culprit under the rubric of benefit-of-clergy, for which the sanction was branding in the thumb. The decision between finding an accused guilty of murder or manslaughter, which also belonged to the jury, can be seen as the choice between capital punishment and branding. It could be argued that in all these situations the jury was in reality discharging a sentencing function, and even today we expect sentencing officers to consult past conviction evidence. But we have seen that the OBSP show that the juries were using past conviction evidence to determine guilt, and with no const”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“We have spoken of the grooves in which the jury might exercise its charity: the verdict in thefts for amounts under the 12d. boundary between grand and petit larceny, and the privilege of finding manslaughter, self-defense or accident upon indictments for murder. These prerogatives the juries in New York did not hesitate to assert, and to these old and established powers of mitigation may be added, perhaps, the avoidance in New York of the incidents of felony judgment by the persistent finding of no goods or tenements. Of considerably greater significance than these possible interferences of the jury, but connected therewith in the case of verdicts for crimes of a less degree when murder, burglary, arson, highway robbery and certain others were charged, is the mitigation obtained by benefit of clergy.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“only a small fraction of eighteenth-century criminal trials were genuinely contested inquiries into guilt or innocence .... To the extent that trial had a function in such cases beyond formalizing the inevitable conclusion of guilt, it was to decide the sanction. These trials were sentencing proceedings.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.