United States v. Lay’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions

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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Lay argues that upholding his sentence will put defendants in an impossible position of being unable to contest improper sentencing enhancements without jeopardizing credit for acceptance of responsibility. But this argument ignores the court-found facts of this case. The district court did not find Lay to be fully forthright or to have admitted all relevant conduct. Had the court made such findings, and also denied credit for acceptance of responsibility, a quite different case might be presented. There is no reason to assume that in some other case a defendant ... would not be able to present evidence ... without jeopardizing credit for acceptance of responsibility. Certainly, the position of a defendant who must testify in order to contest an improper enhancement requires the treading of a fine line. But the solution to that dilemma is to testify honestly, without falsely denying relevant conduct.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Norman Conner

2. “(2) If (A) the offense involved the knowing misrepresentation of a participant’s identity to persuade, induce, entice, coerce, or facilitate the travel of, a minor to engage in prohibited sexual conduct; or (B) a participant otherwise unduly influenced a minor to engage in prohibited sexual conduct, increase by 2 levels. (3) If the offense involved the use of a computer or an interactive computer service to (A) persuade, induce, entice, coerce, or facilitate the travel of, the minor to engage in prohibited sexual conduct; or (B) entice, encourage, offer, or solicit a person to engage in prohibited sexual conduct with the minor, increase by 2 levels.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Kevin Murphy

3. “allowing] a predator to use a computer to develop relationships with minor victims, so long as the ultimate consummation is first proposed through offline communication, would not serve the purpose of the enhancement. The computer-provided threat of anonymous one-to-many communications by a sexual predator exists whether the predator uses the Internet to make explicit proposals of sexual activity or merely to strike up friendships with potential victims. Either course allows the predator to contact more potential victims, and to make initial contacts more insidiously, than would be possible offline.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Farrington