U.S. v. Pothier’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. “[N]o person shall be made to suffer the onus of a criminal conviction except upon sufficient proof -- defined as evidence necessary to convince a trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt of the existence of every element of the offense.”

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

2. “a judge may not pursue a 'divide and conquer' strategy in considering whether the circumstantial evidence [] adds up . . ., neither may a judge 'stack inference upon inference in order to uphold the jury's verdict.'”

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

3. “Pothier must have known that the illicit material was on his laptop because he was the only person who otherwise used [it], and therefore must have been the person who downloaded the pornography.”

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