United States v. Scacchetti’s Empirical Analysis
668 F.2d 643 · 1982
Citation profile
23 federal appellate ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently July 2017 · most notably United States v. Boylan (1990), United States v. Carson (1983)
23 federal appellate ·
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. § 1951 (Hobbs Act)
Relies on Berger v. United States · Costello v. United States · Stirone v. United States · Henderson v. Kibbe · Mahan v. Howell
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The government on appeal argues that mens rea was implicit in the court’s use of “wrongful.” But the court’s own definition of the term negates this argument. The court told the jury that the defendant obtained property wrongfully if it was “obtained under color of official right” and she was “not lawfully entitled to this property.” This statement of the elements of the crime was incomplete. Intention was omitted. A homely example will illustrate the deficiency. A judge taking a colleague’s robe by mistake does so under color of official right and he is not lawfully entitled to the robe. The taking is wrongful. But it is no crime: the judge acts without mens rea. One searches the instructions on extortion almost in vain for any instructions enlightening the jury on mens rea. One finds: It is not necessary for the government to show that the defendant actually intended to delay, obstruct or affect interstate commerce. Thus the jury was told what intention the government need not prove. It was not told what intention the government must prove. The general instruction that was given, “You may consider it reasonable to draw the inference and find that a person intends the natural and probable consequences of acts knowingly done or knowingly omitted,” has no bearing on the specific intention to commit the crime with which Aguon was charged. Criminal intent was a necessary element that the government had to prove. No act standing alone is a crime under the Hobbs Act. A guilty mind”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“So long as the motivation for the payment focuses on the office of the recipient, the conduct falls within the ambit of the Hobbs Act.”
1 later decision 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.