9 canonical passages across 7 cases, quoted by 42 opinions in total. These passages cluster together because the same opinions keep quoting them side by side — they state parts of one doctrine. The anchor passage is from Callanan v. United States.
| # | Case | Flag | Canonical passage | Citers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Callanan v. United States Anchor | green | “the rule of lenity comes into operation at the end of the process of construing what congress has expressed, not at the beginning as an overriding consideration of being lenient to wrongdoers.” | 12 |
| 2 | Callanan v. United States | green | “the rule comes into operation at the end of the process of construing what congress has expressed, not at the beginning as an overriding consideration of being lenient to wrongdoers.” | 6 |
| 3 | Callanan v. United States | green | “only serves as an aid for resolving an ambiguity; it is not to be used to beget one.” | 6 |
| 4 | Gordon S. Sorrell, Jr. And June M. Sorrell v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue | green | “while congress's later view as to the meaning of pre-existing law does not seal the outcome when addressing a question of statutory interpretation, it should not be discounted when relevant.” | 3 |
| 5 | United States v. Raul Rodriguez | green | “chose to address the 'crack problem' by enhancing the penalties for the more broad class of cocaine bases.” | 3 |
| 6 | United States v. Latoscha Ronice Fisher, United States of America v. Frederick Devon Fleming, A/K/A Frog | green | “this legislative history demonstrates that congress intended, with the enactment of clause (iii), to penalize more severely violations involving crack cocaine.” | 3 |
| 7 | United States v. Henry Booker | green | “congress was targeting crack cocaine when it passed the stiffer sentencing provisions for 'cocaine base.” | 3 |
| 8 | United States v. Jose Ramon Montoya | green | “no doubt that the guidelines' term cocaine base included at least crack” | 3 |
| 9 | United States v. Reynaldo Canales | green | “congress instructed the sentencing commission that 'the sentence imposed for trafficking in a quantity of crack cocaine should generally exceed the sentence imposed for trafficking in a like amount of powder cocaine” | 3 |
A red or yellow flag on a member means the underlying case has negative treatment — for those, check the case page before relying on the passage.