Cuellar v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
553 U.S. 550 · 2008
Citation profile
113 federal appellate · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 274 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably United States v. Warshak (2010), Chaney v. Dreyfus Service Corp. (2010)
113 federal appellate · 19 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1956 (§ 1352 of the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986) · 31 U.S.C. § 5332 (§ 371 of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001)
Relies on Pennsylvania Department of Corrections v. Yeskey · United States v. Carr · United States v. Garcia-Emanuel · United States v. Majors · United States v. Abbell
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 274 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) the defendant conducted or attempted to conduct a financial transaction; (2) the transaction involved the proceeds of a statutorily specified unlawful activity; (3) the defendant knew the proceeds were from some form of illegal activity; and (4) the defendant knew a purpose of the transaction was to conceal or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of the proceeds.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“§ 1956. Laundering of monetary instruments (a)(1) Whoever, knowing that the property involved in a financial transaction represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, conducts or attempts to conduct such a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity- (A)(i) with the intent to promote the carrying on of specified unlawful activity; or (ii) with intent to engage in conduct constituting a violation of section 7201 or 7206 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 ; or (B) knowing that the transaction is designed in whole or in part- (i) to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership, or the control of the proceeds of specified unlawful activity; or (ii) to avoid a transaction reporting requirement under State or Federal law, shall be sentenced to a fine ... or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“requires proof * that the purpose -- not merely effect -- of the transportation was to conceal or disguise a listed attribute”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.