State v. Gardner’s Empirical Analysis
2008
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 189 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 192 later decisions — most recently January 2026 · most notably State v. Underwood (2010), State v. Fry (2010)
1 federal appellate · 189 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 21 U.S.C. § 848 (§ 408 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Taylor v. United States · Sandstrom v. Montana · State v. Long · State v. Adams
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 192 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“' "In an alternative means case, where a single offense may be committed in more than one way, there must be jury unanimity as to guilt for the single crime charged. Unanimity is not required, however, as to the means by which the crime was committed so long as substantial evidence supports each alternative means. In reviewing an alternative means case, the court must determine whether a rational trier of fact could have found each means of committing the crime proved beyond a reasonable doubt. " ' "In multiple acts cases, on the other hand, several acts are alleged and any one of them could constitute the crime charged. In these cases, the jury must be unanimous as to which act or incident constitutes the crime. To ensure jury unanimity in multiple acts cases, we require that either the State elect the particular criminal act upon which it will rely for conviction, or that the trial court instruct the jury that all of them must agree that the same underlying criminal act has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“'need not always decide unanimously which of several possible sets of underlying brute facts make up a particular element, say, which of several possible means the defendant used to commit an element of the crime.'”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“Plain errors or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the court.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. State v. Burney · State v. Boyd
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.