United States v. Hall’s Empirical Analysis
552 F.2d 273 · 1977
Citation profile
41 federal appellate · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 54 later decisions — most recently September 2024 · most notably United States v. Ammar (1983), United States v. Lopez-Alvarez (1992)
41 federal appellate · 6 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 21 U.S.C. § 812 (§ 202 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Starnes v. Penrod Drilling Co. · Acosta v. United States · New York v. Penn Central Transportation Co. · United States v. Nelson · United States v. Noah
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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[The government’s expert] testified that his tests indicated that the substance was cocaine. In addition, while [his] tests could not distinguish between the isomers of cocaine, there was extensive circumstantial evidence showing that the substance was natural cocaine derived from cocoa leaves (1-cocaine) rather than d-cocaine. The government presented evidence that d-cocaine was difficult and expensive to make. More importantly, the experts had never actually found a specimen of d-cocaine. Finally, d-cocaine could be synthesized anywhere, according to the experts, yet instead of basing his operations in the interior United States, there was evidence that [defendant] was engaged in a smuggling operation to bring drugs into the United States from Mexico. This evidence, with reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, is more than adequate to permit a rational conclusion by the jury that the substance sold by [defendant] was, beyond a reasonable doubt, cocaine.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“manifestly intended to influence the jury towards accepting the evidence of [one party] as against that of [the other].”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Hall called his sole witness, Shapiro, to testify concerning the properties of the two isomers. Shapiro testified that d-cocaine is not the chemical equivalent to 1-cocaine and that d-cocaine would have a different physiological effect on the human body than 1-cocaine. Prior to this testimony, Medina had also discussed the properties of the two isomers, stating that they ‘would behave chemically equivalent [sic] ... except for the rotation of the polarized light ... in the polarimeter.’ Thus, both witnesses indicated that there were some differences between the two isomers, although there was an apparent conflict as to whether there was a chemical equivalency.””
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.