United States v. Thomas’s Empirical Analysis
932 F.2d 1085 · 1991
Citation profile
68 federal appellate · 3 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 95 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably United States v. Watts (1997), United States v. Rodriguez De Varon (1999)
68 federal appellate · 3 district ·
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)
Relies on American Manufacturers Mutual Insurance v. United States · Perrin v. United States · Hughey v. United States · Boyce Motor Lines, Inc. v. United States · Alexander 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 95 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“do enough less so that he at best was peripheral to the advancement of the illicit activity”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Cocaine base is a different drug from cocaine, and, because it is prepared for inhalation, concentrates and magnifies the effect of one gram of cocaine to such a degree that dealers profitably can sell it in very cheap yet still-potent quantities. Treating the two substances differently thus is not a due process violation, as when cocaine is changed into cocaine base, it becomes a different chemical substance. Congress need not treat dissimilar drugs similarly.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[W]e normally impart the same meaning to the same phrase throughout related statutes . . . .”
2 later decisions 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.