United States v. Townsend’s Empirical Analysis
924 F.2d 1385 · 1991
Citation profile
364 federal appellate · 6 district · 21 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 464 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2024 · most notably Griffin v. United States (1991), 4 Cal. 4th 1116 - People v. Guiton (1993)
364 federal appellate · 6 district · 21 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
Applies 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 843 (§ 403 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 846 (§ 406 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Kotteakos v. United States · Pinkerton v. United States · Pereira v. United States · American Manufacturers Mutual Insurance v. United States · Zant v. Stephens
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 464 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is one thing to negate a verdict that, while supported by evidence, may have been based on an erroneous view of the law; it is another to do so merely on the chance — remote, it seems to us — that the jury convicted on a ground that was not supported by adequate evidence when there existed alternative grounds for which the evidence was sufficient.”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“Conspiracies, like other crimes, may be proved entirely by circumstantial evidence.”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“a reasonable trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of the single conspiracy charged in the indictment.”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.