Chaffee & Co. v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

42 federal appellate · 11 district · 69 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 177 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““And that rule, with some exceptions not including the present case, requires, for the admissibility of the entries, not merely that they shall be contemporaneous with the facts to which they relate, but shall be made by parties having personal knowledge of the facts, and be corroborated by their testimony, if living and accessible, or by proof of their handwriting, if dead or insane, or beyond the reach of the process or commission of the court. The testimony of living witnesses personally cognizant of the facts of which they speak, given under the sanction of an oath in open court, where they may be subjected to cross-examination, affords the greatest security for truth. Their declarations, verbal or written, must, however, sometimes be admitted when they themselves cannot be called, in order to prevent a failure of justice. The admissibility of the declarations is in such cases limited by the necessity upon which it is founded.””

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Little Rock Granite Co. v. Dallas County · Osborne v. United States

2. ““Tlie purport of all this was to tell the jury that, although the defendants must be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, yet if the government had made out a pilma facie case against them, not one free from all doubt, but one which disclosed circumstances requiring explanation, and the defendants did not explain, the perplexing question of their guilt need not disturb the minds of the jurors. Their silence supplied in the presumptions of the law that full proof which should dispel all reasonable doubt. In other words, 1he court instructed the jury, in substance, that the government need only prove that the defendants were presumptively guilty, and the duty thereupon devolved upon them-to establish their innocence, and, if they did not, they were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We do- not think it at all necessary to go into any argument to show the error of this instruction. The error is palpablo on its statement. All the authorities condemn it. The case of Clifton v. United States, In 4 How. [242, 11 L. Ed. 957 ], cited by the court below, was divided upon a statute which cast the burden of proof upon the claimant in seizure cases after probable cause was shown for the prosecution, and therefore has no application. The Instruction sets at naught established principles, and justifies the criticism of counsel that it substantially withdrew from the defendants their constitutional right of trial by jury, and converted what at law was intended for their protection — the r”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States ex rel. Castro v. Williams · Dedrick v. State

3. ““The proof in the outset may be defective. It may not be sufficient to enable you, without any doubt or hesitation, to find against the defendants, and still it may be your duty, nevertheless, so to find; for although I instruct you that the case must be made out beyond all reasonable doubt in this, as well as in criminal cases, yet the course of the defendants may have supplied, in the presumptions of law, all which this stringent rule demands. In determining, therefore, in the outset whether a case is established by the' government, you will dismiss from your minds the perplexing question, whether it is so made out beyond all doubt. It needs not, in the exigencies of this case, be so proved in order to throw the burden of explanation upon the defendant, if from the facts you believe he has within his reach that power. In the end all reasonable doubt roust be removed; but here, at this stage, you need only say, ‘Is the case so far established as to call for explanation?’ * * * ‘Without exception, where a party has proof in his power, which, if produced, would render certain material facts, the law presumes against a party who omits it, and authorizes a jury to resolve all doubts adversely to his defense. The same rule is applicable in a case where a party once had proof in his power which had been voluntarily destroyed or placed beyond his reach.’ If you believe the books were kept which contained the facts necessary to show the real amount of whisky in the hands of the defe”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. Regan