United States v. Ross’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

102 federal appellate · 1 district · 160 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 320 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““These seem to be nothing more than conjectures. They are not legitimate Inferences even'to establish a fact, much less are they presumptions of law. They are inferences from inferences; presumptions resting on the basis of another presumption. Such a mode of arriving at a conclusion of law is gen erally, if not universally inadmissible. No inference of fact or of law is reliably drawn from premises wliicli are uncertain.””

   13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Pope v. Allis · United States v. Summers

2. ““ The presumption that public officers have done their duty, like the presumption of innocence, is undoubtedly a legal presumption; but it does not supply proof of a substantive fact. Best, in his Treatise on Evid. sect. 300, says: ‘ The true principle intended to be asserted by the rule seems to be, that there is a general disposition in courts of justice to uphold judicial and other acts rather than to render them inoperative; .and with this view, where there is general evidence of acts having been legally and regularly done, to dispense with proof of' circumstances, strictly speaking, essential to. the validity of those acts, and by’which they were probably accompanied in most instances, although in others the assumption may rest on grounds of public policy.’ Nowhere is the presumption held to be a substitute for proof of an independent and material fact.” -”

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Sabariego v. Maverick · United States v. Carr

3. ““A presumption which the jury is to make is not a circumstance in' proof: and it is not, therefore, a legitimate foundation for a pre sumption. There must he an open and visible connection between the fact out of which the first presumption arises and the fact sought to be established by the dependent presumption. In other words, although from proof of the fact A, the fact B may be presumed, and from proof of the fact B the fact C may be presumed, it does not at all follow that from proof of the fact A producing the presumption of B, the fact' C may be presumed, because fact C is dependent upon the proof of fact B, and presumption is clearly not proof. Nowhere is the presumption held to be a substitute for proof of an independent and material fact.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Judd