United States v. Mitchell’s Empirical Analysis
553 F.2d 996 · 1977
Citation profile
28 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 50 later decisions — most recently August 2018 · most notably Laker Airways Limited v. Sabena Belgian World Airlines Klm Laker Airways Limited (1984), The Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana v. Harry L. Laws Company, Inc. (1982)
28 federal appellate · 3 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
Relies on Leedom v. Kyne · Romano v. United States · Blackmer v. United States · Foley Bros. v. Filardo · Steele v. Bulova Watch Co.
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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The necessary locus [for application of a statute], when not specially defined, depends upon the purpose of Congress, as evinced by the description and nature of the crime, and upon the territorial limitations upon the power and jurisdiction of a government to punish crime under the law of nations. Crimes against private individuals or their property, like assaults, murder, burglary, larceny, robbery, arson, embezzlement, and frauds of all kinds which affect the peace and good order of the community, must, of course, be committed within the territorial jurisdiction of the government where it may properly exercise it. If punishment of them is to be extended to include those committed outside of the strict territorial jurisdiction, it is natural for Congress to say so in the statute, and failure to do so will negative the purpose of Congress in this regard.... But the same rule of interpretation should not be applied to criminal statutes, which are, as a class, not logically dependent on their locality for the government’s jurisdiction, but are enacted because of the right of the government to defend itself against obstruction or fraud, wherever perpetrated, especially if committed by its own citizens, officers, or agents. Some such offenses can only be committed within the territorial jurisdiction of the government because of the local acts required to constitute them. Others are such that, to limit their locus to the strictly territorial jurisdiction, would be greatly to curt”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[could] not say that the interests of the United States in preserving dolphins outweighs the interest of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas in preserving its character as a tourist attraction by the issuance of a limited number of permits for the capture of dolphins within its narrow band of territorial waters.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“when Congress did define the geographic scope of the prohibitions in section 1372, it did not make conduct in foreign territory unlawful. Takings without permits were prohibited only in United States territory and on the high seas. The omission of the territory of other sovereigns permits the reasonable inference that Congress concluded the prohibitions should not extend extraterritorially.”
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.