United States v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis
557 F.2d 541 · 1977
Citation profile
79 federal appellate · 3 district · 38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 165 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2024 · most notably Barefoot v. Estelle (1983), United States v. Downing (1985)
79 federal appellate · 3 district · 38 state decisions — followed in 21 states
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. § 3501 · 18 U.S.C. § 844 · 26 U.S.C. § 5845 (§ 201 of the Gun Control Act of 1968) · 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · Townsend v. Sain · Brewer v. Williams · Elkins v. United States
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 165 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“There are good reasons why not every ostensibly scientific technique should be recognized as the basis for expert testimony. Because of its apparent objectivity, an opinion that claims a scientific basis is apt to carry undue weight with the trier of fact. In addition, it is difficult to rebut such an opinion except by other experts or by cross-examination based on a thorough acquaintance with the underlying principles. In order to prevent deception or mistake and to allow the possibility of effective response, there must be a demonstrable, objective procedure for reaching the opinion and qualified persons who can either duplicate the result or criticize the means by which it was reached, drawing their own conclusions from the underlying facts.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Id. 9 Determining the voluntariness of a confession requires an examination of the totality of the circumstances surrounding the confession and an assessment of the psychological impact of those circumstances on”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A courtroom is not a research laboratory. The fate of a defendant in a criminal prosecution should not hang on his ability to successfully rebut scientific evidence which bears an “aura of special reliability and trustworthiness,” although, in reality the witness is testifying on the basis of an unproved hypothesis in an isolated experiment which has yet to gain general acceptance in its field.”
5 later decisions 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.