United States v. Wright’s Empirical Analysis
593 F.2d 105 · 1979
Citation profile
39 federal appellate · 2 district · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 63 later decisions — most recently December 2020 · most notably United States v. Escobar de Bright (1984), United States v. Baylin (1982)
39 federal appellate · 2 district · 11 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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 5010 · 21 U.S.C. § 801 (§ 101 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 802 (§ 102 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Townsend v. Burke · Acosta v. United States · McNeil v. Director, Patuxent Institution · Texas v. Louisiana · United States v. Weston
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 63 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In Swiderski, the court held that where two individuals simultaneously and jointly acquire possession of a drug for their own use, intending only to share it together, their only crime is personal drug abuse — simple joint possession, without any intent to distribute the drug further. Since both acquire possession from the outset and neither . intends to distribute the drug to a third person, neither serves as a link in the chain of distribution. For the purposes of the Act they must therefore be treated as possessors for personal use rather than for further distribution.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he evidence in this case does not support a Swiderski charge. This is not a case in which two individuals proceeded together to a place where they simultaneously purchased a controlled substance for their personal use. Here Wright operated as the link between the person with whom he intended to share the heroin and the drug itself. He was not entitled to the instruction he sought.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Congress intended to prevent individuals from acquiring drugs for whatever purpose on behalf of others and then transferring the drugs to those others,”
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.