United States v. Powell’s Empirical Analysis
587 F.2d 443 · 1978
Citation profile
71 federal appellate · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 103 later decisions — most recently March 2023 · most notably United States v. Feldman (1986), United States v. Bailleaux (1982)
71 federal appellate · 19 state decisions — followed in 11 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 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Jones v. United States · Brown v. United States · United States v. Myers · Isaacs v. United States · United States v. Goodwin
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 103 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"The probative value of evidence of other crimes where the issue is identity depends upon the extent to which it raises an inference that the perpetrator of the prior offenses was the perpetrator of the offense in issue. Both the existence and the strength of an inference proceeds through an evaluation of the similarities between the prior offense and the charged crime. Thus, if the characteristics of both the prior offense and the charged offense are not in any way distinctive, but are similar to numerous other crimes committed by persons other than the defendant, no inference of identity can arise. An inference of identity from prior crimes can only arise when the elements of the prior offenses and the charged offense, singly or together, are sufficiently distinctive to warrant an inference that the person who committed the prior offense also committed the offense on trial... . The probative value of evidence of other crimes on the issue of identity always depends upon the strength of the inference; when the inference of identity is weak, evidence of prior crimes should be excluded because under such circumstances the prejudicial effect of the evidence inevitably outweighs the probative value of that evidence." (Citations omitted.) (Emphasis added.) See note 1, supra.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a material issue for the purpose of applying Rule 404(b).”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“suggested that he had not had any prior convictions before his 1973 offense.”
2 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.