Rowley v. Welch’s Empirical Analysis
114 F.2d 499 · 1940
Citation profile
78 federal appellate · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 116 later decisions — most recently May 2008 · most notably United States v. Villano (1987), Johnson v. Williams (1943)
78 federal appellate · 23 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 Johnson v. Zerbst · Palko v. State of Connecticut · Ball v. United States · Ex parte Lange · Kepner 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 116 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“So construed, the Amendment would embalm into constitutional right an act of pure inadvertence, although every consideration of justice and its proper administration requires that this most solemn judicial step be taken with no taint of accident or inattention, but with the utmost deliberation and presence of mind. Courts, being human, cannot avoid occasional lapses characteristic of humanity, nor can the Constitution prevent them. It can only guard against their consequences. But it would not do so by perpetuating or making them inescapable. The sounder view would be that the lapse would vitiate the sentence, with the consequence that it would be void and no bar to a later and deliberate pronouncement of judgment.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage“The pronouncement of sentence constitutes the judgment of the court.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““ * # * we are not required to decide whether a court having once pronounced sentence in accordance with its true intent and purpose can change it later in such a manner as to increase the penalty, whether before or after service of the sentence begins. The question is whether such a change can be made, if done promptly, in order to correct a sentence inadvertently pronounced and make it speak the true intention of the court. * * * [page 503] It was not the purpose of the [Fifth] amendment to compel courts to give effect to their inattentive and nondeliberative acts, so long at least as their actual execution has not been initiated and the prisoner has not been harmed by them other than in hearing the pronouncement made and promptly corrected.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.