Townsend v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
95 F.2d 352 · 1938
Citation profile
81 federal appellate · 16 district · 26 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 138 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2024 · most notably Quinn v. United States (1955), Mary P. Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., Air Line Pilots Association, Non-Aligned Party. Mary P. Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., Air Line Pilots Association, Non-Aligned Party (1977)
81 federal appellate · 16 district · 26 state decisions
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 2 U.S.C. § 192
Relies on Reynolds v. States · United States v. Murdock · Sinclair v. United States · Williamson v. United States · Kilbourn v. Thompson
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 138 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The word ‘willful,’ even in criminal statutes, means no more than that the person charged with the duty knows what he is doing. It does not mean that, in addition, he must suppose that he is breaking the law." American Surety Co. v. Sullivan, 2 Cir., 1925, 7 F.2d 605 , 606.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent““A legislative inquiry anticipates •all possible cases [emphasis in the opinion] which may arise thereunder and the evidence admissible must be responsive to the scope of the inquiry, which generally is very broad.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“As was stated in the Murdock Case, the meaning of the word `willful' should be separately ascertained, for each statute in which it is used, according to the context in which Congress used it. It is obvious, we think, that Congress intended there should be willful default if a witness deliberately and defiantly refused to attend a committee hearing because he felt that the committee's attitude was unfriendly or unfair.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.