United States v. Todd’s Empirical Analysis
657 F.2d 212 · 1981
Citation profile
24 federal appellate · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently August 2015 · most notably United States v. Pennell (1984), United States v. Crenshaw (2004)
24 federal appellate · 3 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. § 1111 · 18 U.S.C. § 1117 · 18 U.S.C. § 3236 · 18 U.S.C. § 371
Relies on Glasser v. United States · Wong Sun v. United States · Hamling v. United States · Opper v. United States · Sansone 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The government recognizes that neither of Todd’s statements made any reference to a plan or agreement to murder Williams. The government’s contention is that because Williams and the alleged conspirators were members of the same basic training company and because Todd stated that they intended to rob Williams, it is reasonable to assume that they planned also to murder him so that he would not identify them after the robbery. We are unaware of any case in which a court or jury was allowed to convict on the basis of inference alone. The government has not presented an admission by the defendant of a conspiracy to murder; nor has it offered any evidence of an agreement between Todd and another person to murder Williams. Although the government is allowed to prove an agreement by circumstantial evidence, United States v. Taylor, supra, 599 F.2d [832] at 838 [ (8th Cir.1979) ], here there is only speculation and inference. This court has said that the “(e)vidence must do more than merely raise suspicion of possibility of guilt. Surmise cannot be permitted in a criminal case.” We are not convinced that the evidence here was sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Todd was involved in a conspiracy to murder Williams. We reverse the conviction of conspiracy to murder.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““[t]he corroborative evidence need not be sufficient, independent of the statements to establish the corpus delicti [but must] tend to establish the trustworthiness of the statement . . . and provide substantial independent evidence that the offense has been committed.” United States v. Todd, 657 F.2d 212, 216 (8th Cir. 1981), quoting Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84 (1954) and Smith v. United States, 348 U.S. 147 (1954).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Doyle v. State
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.