Sands v. Murphy’s Empirical Analysis
633 F.2d 968 · 1980
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 6 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 27 later decisions — most recently August 2009 · most notably Irons v. Federal Bureau of Investigation (1987), Lame v. United States Department of Justice (1981)
15 federal appellate · 6 district ·
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 28 U.S.C. § 1291 · 5 U.S.C. § 552 (Freedom of Information Act)
Relies on Department of the Air Force v. Rose · Thompson v. United States · Brewer v. United States · Lesar v. United States Department of Justice · Nix 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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[The policy of 7(D)] is to enlarge the flow of information to the final federal enforcement agency by protecting informers against risks of reprisal or loss of privacy... . [W]hen a person gives information to any law enforcement agency (including state, national, and foreign law enforcement agencies) under an express or implied agreement by the agency with which the informer is in direct contact that his name will be held confidential, it is implied that his name will be held confidential by any law enforcement agency to which the contacted agency transmits the material. Such implied promises of protection are so universal that any law enforcement agency which receives information transmitted by another law enforcement agency takes it under the implied promise that it will protect the names of informers which the transmitting agency received in confidence.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“(7) records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information ... (D) could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source and, in the case of a record compiled by a law enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation ... confidential information furnished only by the confidential source ...”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“Exemption 7(D) differs from other FOIA exemptions in that its applicability depends not on the specific factual contents of a particular document; instead, the pertinent question is whether the information was furnished by a “confidential source” during the course of a legitimate criminal law investigation. Once that question is answered in the affirmative, all such information obtained from the confidential source receives protection.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.