Nathan v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
737 F.2d 1069 · 1984
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 1 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently March 2004 · most notably Haitian Refugee Center v. Gracey (1987), Community for Creative Non-violence v. Pierce (1986)
15 federal appellate · 1 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. § 291 · 28 U.S.C. § 591 · 28 U.S.C. § 592 · 28 U.S.C. § 593 · 28 U.S.C. § 594 · 28 U.S.C. § 595
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc. · United States v. Nixon · Cannon v. University of Chicago · Insurance Corp. of Ireland v. Compagnie Des Bauxites De Guinee
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.
“It may be thought that neither the relief granted by the district court nor that sought by the plaintiffs falls within the principle of Executive control of decisions to prosecute. The district court ordered the Attorney General to initiate a preliminary investigation; the plaintiffs seek to compel an application for the appointment of an independent counsel. The distinction between these remedies and the [prosecutorial discretion] principle discussed above has no significance, however. The only purpose of the preliminary investigation under the Ethics Act is to enable a report to the special division of this court about the need or the lack of a need for the appointment of independent counsel. The preliminary investigation is thus the first stage of the prosecutorial process and the district court has undertaken to control that stage. Plaintiffs would have the district court control the next stage as well ordering the Attorney General to apply to the special division of this court for the appointment of an independent counsel. It is no answer to say that the courts, under either form of relief, would not control the final prosecutorial decision since that would be made by the independent counsel. There are at least two flaws in that reasoning. The first is that the principle of Executive control extends to all phases of the prosecutorial process. Thus, were this a case about an ordinary prosecution under a federal criminal statute, a plaintiff could not escape the principle ”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he [Ethics] Act establishes no mechanism for considering citizen complaints, nor does the Act require the Attorney General to make his findings public or to report them to a complaining citizen. The text contains nothing that even suggests a private cause of action.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The Attorney General shall conduct an investigation pursuant to the provisions of this chapter whenever the Attorney General receives specific information that any of the persons described in subsection (b) of this section has committed a violation of any Federal criminal law other than a violation constituting a petty offense.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.