United States v. Strohm’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 1 district · 2 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Q. Have you talked to Mr. McMahon, the Defendant about your testimony here today? A. No.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Schulte · United States v. Hale

2. “A question is fundamentally ambiguous in narrow circumstances. To qualify, the question must lack 'a meaning about which men of ordinary intellect could agree, nor one which could be used with mutual understanding by a questioner and answerer unless it were defined at the time it were sought and offered as testimony.’ That is, the question itself is excessively vague, making it impossible to know&emdash;without guessing&emdash;the meaning of the question and whether a witness intended to make a false response.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Schulte

3. “(1) the inherent vagueness—or, conversely, the inherent clarity—of certain words and phrases, (2) the compound character of a question, (3) the existence of defects in syntax or grammar in a question, (4) the context of the question and answer, and (5) the defendant’s own responses to allegedly ambiguous questions.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Chujoy