United States v. Ayers’s Empirical Analysis
84 F.3d 382 · 1996
Citation profile
18 federal appellate · 1 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably United States v. Virgen-Chavarin (2003), United States v. Verners (1996)
18 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 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on United States v. Chavez-Palacios · United States v. Hagan · United States v. Santistevan · United States v. Tabares · United States v. Rangel-Arreola
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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“someone who played no other role in a very large drug smuggling operation than to offload part of a single marihuana shipment, or in a case where an individual was recruited as a courier for a single smuggling transaction involving a small amount of drugs.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'vests the district court with discretion to grant a base offense level reduction if it finds a defendant is less culpable relative to other participants in a given offense.'”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A defendant has the burden of establishing, by a preponderance of the evidence, that he is entitled to a reduction in [his] base offense level under § 3B1.2.”
3 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.