United States v. Baker’s Empirical Analysis
807 F.2d 427 · 1986
Citation profile
14 federal appellate · 2 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently April 2012
14 federal appellate · 2 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 18 U.S.C. § 2320 · 7 U.S.C. § 2024
Relies on Hamling v. United States · United States v. Turkette · Liparota v. United States · United States v. Freed · Yamanis 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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is not surprising that Congress would allow conviction of one who knows that he is selling bogus “Rolex” watches even though he does not know his conduct is punishable as a crime. While it is true that “the general principle that ignorance or mistake of law is no excuse is usually greatly overstated” (American Law Institute, Model Penal Code § 2.02 comment 131 (Tent. Draft no. 4 1955)), the principle continues to be valid to the extent that ordinarily “the criminal law does not require knowledge that an act is illegal, wrong, or blameworthy.” United States v. Freed, 401 U.S. 601, 612 , 91 S.Ct. 1112 , 28 L.Ed.2d 356 (1971) (Brennan, J., concurring). [Defendant’s claim is merely that, even though he had the mental states required by the face of the statute, he should not be convicted because he did not know that Congress had passed a statute criminalizing his conduct. This clearly is not the law. A defendant cannot “avoid prosecution by simply claiming that he had not brushed up on the law.” Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 123 , 94 S.Ct. 2887 , 41 L.Ed.2d 590 (1974).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Both the language of the statute and the legislative history lead to the inescapable conclusion that [the defendant] need not have known his conduct was a crime.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. US V. Peng Da Lin“intentionally traffics or attempts to traffic in goods or services and knowingly uses a counterfeit mark on or in connection with such goods or services....”
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.