United States v. Widgery’s Empirical Analysis
778 F.2d 325 · 1985
Citation profile
49 federal appellate · 4 district · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 82 later decisions — most recently December 2025 · most notably Verdin v. O'Leary (1992), Rand v. Rowland (1998)
49 federal appellate · 4 district · 7 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 28 U.S.C. § 2111 · 28 U.S.C. § 455
Relies on Chapman v. State of California · Donnelly v. DeChristoforo · Smith v. Phillips · Armstrong v. Manzo · Snyder v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts
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 82 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[a] judge's failure to show jurors' notes to counsel and allow them to comment before responding violates Fed. R.Crim.P. 43(a), not the [C]onstitution.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'only a trial fundamentally unfair in light of the entire proceedings violates”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In a criminal case, any private communication, contact, or tampering, directly or indirectly, with a juror during a trial about the matter pending before the jury is, for obvious reasons, deemed presump tively prejudicial, if not made in pursuance of known rules of the court and the instructions and directions of the court made during the trial, with full knowledge of the parties. The presumption is not conclusive, but the burden rests heavily upon the Government to establish, after notice to and hearing of the defendant, that such contact with the juror was harmless to the defendant.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.