United States v. Beckham’s Empirical Analysis
968 F.2d 47 · 1992
Citation profile
64 federal appellate · 10 district · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 100 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2021 · most notably Nichols v. United States (1994), United States v. Wilson (1998)
64 federal appellate · 10 district · 6 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
Relies on Bourjaily v. United States · Missouri v. Continential Insurance Cos. · Mistretta v. United States · Harmelin v. Michigan · Iannelli 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 100 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“I do not see that I have any discretion in the matter. Congress and the Sentencing Commission have taken that away from me.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“disproportionality does not, in itself, provide an appropriate basis for a downward departure. Unless the disproportionality between crime and punishment is so extreme that it violates the Eighth Amendment ... the sentences established for various crimes under the Guidelines cannot be set aside based merely on their perceived severity.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“If reliable information indicates that the criminal history category does not adequately reflect the seriousness of the defendant’s past criminal conduct or the likelihood that the defendant will commit other crimes, the court may consider imposing a sentence departing from the otherwise applicable guideline range.”
1 later decision 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.