United States v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

76 federal appellate · 6 district · 2 state decisions

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 96 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The government’s understandable, albeit mistaken, conception is a product of confusing statutory draftsmanship. Title I, Section 1002 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 amended former section 841(b) by among other things, replacing the special parole term requirement with a term of supervised release. No specific effective date is mentioned in section 1002. Title I, Section 1004 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 replaced “special parole term” with “term of supervised release” each place the term appeared in the Controlled Substances Act and the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act. Section 1004 expressly ties the effective date of the amendments to the effective date of 18 U.S.C. § 3583 , which contains the standards for the imposition of supervised release. The changes made by section 1004 include the relevant change made by section 1002. Moreover, tying the effective date of the change to the effective date of the implementing statute would seem the more logical arrangement. Finally, the legislative history of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 clearly demonstrates that Congress intended that the imposition of supervised release be tied to the effective date of the supervised release implementing statute. In short, we are unconvinced that Congress intended to set section 841(b) apart from the comprehensive statutory framework developed to replace special parole terms with supervised release.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Gozlon-Peretz · United States v. Brundage

2. “1. Under that 1984 statute ( Pub.L. No. 98-473, § 224 (a), 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News (98 Stat.) 1987, 2030) Congress amended Section 841(b) by deleting the sentences in that provision referring to the imposition of special parole terms in conjunction with custodial offenses under that statute. That change was initially scheduled to take effect November 1, 1986 {id. § 235(a)(1), 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News (98 Stat.) at 2031). 2. By the Sentencing Reform Amendments Act of 1985 (Pub.L. No. 99-217, § 4, 1985 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News (99 Stat.) 1728) Congress extended the effective date of the changes to November 1, 1987. 3. On October 27, 1986 Congress changed that proposed statutory restructuring by providing that the prior references to special parole terms would not simply be deleted but would instead be eliminated by substituting the language “term of supervised release” for “special parole term” every place it appeared in the statutes — thus including Section 841(b) (Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, Pub.L. No. 99-570, §§ 1004(a), 1005(a)(2), 1986 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News (100 Stat.) 3207, 3207-6).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Barry

3. “Any sentence imposed under this subpar-agraph shall, in the absence of such a prior conviction, include a term of supervised, release of at least 4 years in addition to such term of imprisonment....”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Chica