United States v. Thomas’s Empirical Analysis
870 F.2d 174 · 1989
Citation profile
183 federal appellate · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 211 later decisions — most recently April 2023 · most notably United States v. Sanchez-Lopez (1989), United States v. White (1989)
183 federal appellate · 1 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 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 843 (§ 403 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Mistretta v. United States · United States v. Buenrostro · United States v. White · United States v. Mejia-Orosco
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 211 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“standard will nearly always sustain the judgment of the district court in this area. Indeed, the guidelines specifically state that”
33 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[Accepting responsibility for a crime entails admitting the crime, while trial strategies predicated upon a claim of innocence entail denial of the crime. A defendant who maintains her innocence at trial, and then purports to accept responsibility afterward, may have a difficult time persuading the trial judge that her later position is sincere rather than merely convenient. Cases where the convicted defendant succeeds may be rare as a factual matter, but they are not barred by law.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“1. If the defendant is convicted of a conspiracy that includes transactions in controlled substances in addition to those that are the subject of substantive counts of conviction, each conspiracy transaction shall be included with those of the substantive counts of conviction to determine scale. If the defendant is convicted of an offense involving negotiation to traffic in a controlled substance, the weight under negotiation in an uncompleted distribution shall be used to calculate the applicable amount. Where the defendant was not reasonably capable of producing the negotiated amount the court may depart and impose a sentence lower than the sentence that would otherwise result. 16”
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.