United States v. Becker’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

128 federal appellate · 2 district · 41 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 193 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ . . . [A] refinement which only serves to confuse laymen into supposing that they should use circumstantial evidence otherwise than testimonial.” United States v. Becker, 62 F.2d 1007, 1010 (2nd Cir. 1933).”

   11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Wilkins · Hankins v. State

2. “"The only excuses that courts have suggested so far as we can find, are these: an existing course of similar criminal conduct; the accused's already formed design to commit the crime or simuar crimes; his willingness to do so, as evinced by ready complaisance. The decisions are plentiful, but the judges generally content themselves with deciding the case upon the evidence before them; we have been unable to extract from them any definite doctrine, and it seems unprofitable once more to merely catalogue the citations. However, it has been uniformly held that when the accused is continuously engaged in the proscribed conduct, it is permissible to provoke him to a particular violation which will be no more than an instance in a uniform series." 62 F.2d, at 1008 .”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Grossman v. State · Janski v. State

3. “a spontaneous moral revulsion against using the powers of government to beguile innocent, though ductile, persons into lapses which they might otherwise resist.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Dion · Grossman v. State