Smith v. Swope’s Empirical Analysis
91 F.2d 260 · 1937
Citation profile
51 federal appellate · 11 district · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 100 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably Thomas v. Brewer (1991), Shields v. Beto (1967)
51 federal appellate · 11 district · 14 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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
Relies on Lindsey v. State of Washington · Hill v. United States ex rel. Wampler · White v. Pearlman · In re Jennings · Albori 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 100 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ * * * If a ministerial officer, such as a marshal, charged with the duty to execute the court’s orders, fails to carry out such orders, that failure cannot be charged up against the prisoner. The prisoner is entitled to serve his time promptly if such is the judgment imposed, and he must be deemed to be serving it from the date he is ordered to serve it and is in custody of the marshal under the commitment, if, without his fault, the marshall neglects to place him in the proper custody. Any other holding would give the marshal, a ministerial officer, power more arbitrary and capricious than any known in the law. A prisoner sentenced for one year might thus be required to wait forty under the shadow of his unserved sentence before it pleases the marshal to incarcerate him. Such authority is not even granted to courts of justice, let alone their ministerial officers. * * »”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“No sentence shall prescribe any other method of computing the term.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The sentence of imprisonment of any person convicted of an offense in a court of the United States shall commence to run from the date on which such person is received at the penitentiary, reformatory, or jail for service of said sentence. 11”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Hayward v. Looney
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.