United States v. Small’s Empirical Analysis
74 F.3d 1276 · 1996
Citation profile
27 federal appellate · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 42 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably United States v. Wilson (1998), United States v. Thomas (1997)
27 federal appellate · 9 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. § 2 · 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · United States v. Olano · Kotteakos v. United States · Rhode Island v. Innis · Berger 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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor — indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he prosecutor's opening statement should be an objective summary of the evidence reasonably expected to be produced, and the prosecutor should not use the opening statement as an opportunity to 'poison the jury's mind against the defendant' or 'to recite items of highly questionable evidence.' " 74 F.3d at 1283 (citations omitted). In other words, "[t]he prosecutor's opening statement should be confined to a statement of the issues in the case and the evidence the prosecutor intends to offer which the prosecutor believes in good faith will be available and admissible[,]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“This circuit has long made clear that the government must take care to ensure that statements made in opening and closing arguments to the jury are supported by evidence introduced at trial.”
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.