United States v. Watson’s Empirical Analysis
866 F.2d 381 · 1989
Citation profile
37 federal appellate · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 66 later decisions — most recently September 2024 · most notably United States v. Calderon (1997), United States v. Eckhardt (2006)
37 federal appellate · 3 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 18 U.S.C. § 922 (Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 952 · 26 U.S.C. § 5861 (§ 201 of the Gun Control Act of 1968)
Relies on Kotteakos v. United States · United States v. Lane · B.D. International Discount Corp. v. Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A. · Swansboro Country, Inc. v. Lumberman's Mortgage Co. · Logarusic 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 66 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"[T]he person responsible for answering [the] question [of whether the comment was manifestly intended or was of such character that a jury would naturally and necessarily take it to be a comment on the defendant's failure to testify] in the first instance is the trial judge, for only the trial judge has the opportunity to observe the prosecutor's demeanor firsthand. We therefore review only for abuse of discretion the trial judge's determination of whether manifest intent was present. See Williams v. Wainwright, 673 F.2d 1182, 1185 (11th Cir. 1982) (trial court's decision is only to be reversed if the jury would have necessarily viewed the prosecutor's comments as manifestly intended to be a comment on the defendant's refusal to testify); United States v. Pool, 660 F.2d 547, 561 (5th Cir. Unit B Nov.1981) (trial court has broad discretion to control closing argument)."”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the prosecutor's preface of her remarks with the admonishment to the jury that Watson had no duty to testify ... tend[ed] to negate any possibility that the jury would misinterpret the prosecutor's comments”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“In applying this test, the court cannot find that counsel 'manifestly intended' to comment on the defendant's failure to testify if some other explanation for his remark is equally plausible.”
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.