United States v. Fields’s Empirical Analysis
766 F.2d 1161 · 1985
Citation profile
55 federal appellate · 1 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 75 later decisions — most recently July 2016 · most notably United States v. Osborne (1991), United States v. Sophie (1990)
55 federal appellate · 1 district · 5 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. § 371 · 21 U.S.C. § 848 (§ 408 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 26 U.S.C. § 7206
Relies on Santobello v. New York · Jizmejian v. United States · Mabry v. Johnson · Mabry v. Johnson · Marino 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 75 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(a) plea bargain is a contract, the terms of which necessarily must be interpreted in light of the parties' reasonable expectations.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[a] plea agreement is not an appropriate context for the Government to resort to a rigidly literal approach in the construction of language.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““We emphasize that this is in no sense to question the fairness of the sentencing judge; the fault here rests on the prosecutor, not on the sentencing judge.” (at p. 263 of 404 U.S. 257 (Santobello)) See also U.S. v. Fields, 766 F.2d 1161 (1985): “It is most distasteful to be confronted with conflicting testimony by lawyers with respect to the terms of an agreement which ought to be clear and indisputable in its terms.”, cert. denied, 461 U.S. 907 , 103 S.Ct. 1878 , 76 L.Ed. 2d 809 (1983). In sum, we have consistently adhered to the view expressed by the Third Circuit in United States v. Crusco, 536 F.2d 21, 26 (3d Cir. 1976): The Government . . . must also clearly understand the scope and depth of its commitment and the need for precision in plea bargaining. It may reach port in the plea bargaining process but founder there because of careless or loose language in its commitment. Once it makes a promise, Santobello requires strict adherence.” (at p. 1168)”
2 later decisions 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.