119 Ill. 2d 29 - People v. Hicks’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
33 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 36 later decisions — most recently November 2025 · most notably 229 Ill. 2d 421 - O'Casek v. Children's Home & Aid Society (2008), 149 Ill. 2d 467 - People v. Williams (1992)
33 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 Spencer v. State of Texas a Bell · 82 Ill. 2d 556 - People v. Youngbey · 35 Ill. 2d 520 - The People v. Ostrand · 19 Ill. 2d 342 - Western National Bank v. Village of Kildeer · 81 Ill. 2d 260 - O'Connor v. a & P Enterprises
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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is difficult enough, at times, to figure out what one legislature ‘intended’ by a particular statute or provision. After all, our General Assembly is not an actual person who feels, reasons, intends, and acts as a unit. Instead it is a collective entity, made up of 118 flesh-and-blood individuals who, in the privacy of their own minds, may mean by any particular provision anything or nothing. The collective nature of a legislative body impels us to seek ‘intent’ in the objective words of its statutes, as informed by our own judgment and common sense, rather than in the inevitably subjective thoughts of individual members. This task is complicated enough. We complicate it still further when we seek to infer what one legislature intended from the subsequent action of a later legislature, composed of different members and perhaps working towards different purposes.” People v. Hicks, 119 Ill. 2d 29, 39 (1987) (Clark, C.J., dissenting, joined by Simon, J.).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent““Sentence. (2) A person who has been convicted of retail theft of property, the full retail value of which does not exceed $150, and who has been previously convicted of any type of theft, robbery, armed robbery, burglary, residential burglary, possession of burglary tools or home invasion is guilty of a Class 4 felony. When a person has any such prior conviction, the information or indictment charging that person shall state such prior conviction so as to give notice of the State’s intention to treat the charge as a felony. The fact of such prior conviction is not an element of the offense and may not be disclosed to the jury during trial unless otherwise permitted by issues properly raised during such trial.” (Emphasis added.) (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 38, par. 16A— 10(2).)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““Sentence. (1) Retail theft of property, the full retail value of which does not exceed $150, is a Class A misdemeanor. (2) After a conviction of retail theft or theft, without regard to the full retail value thereof, a second or subsequent offense of retail theft, the full retail value of which does not exceed $150 is a Class 4 felony.” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1985, ch. 38, pars. 16A — 10(1), (2)-)”
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.