People v. Stevens’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 state decisions

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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““[T]he various statutes dealing with forgery have been codified by section 17-3 of tire Criminal Code of 1961; the drafters did not intend to change the law, however. (Ill. Ann. Stat., ch. 38, par. 17-3, Committee Comments, at 280-81 (Smith-Hurd 1977).) Thus, section 17-3 uses two pairs of general terms—’makes or alters’ and ‘issues or delivers’—in place of the virtual thesaurus formerly spread over six separate statutes. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1961, ch. 38, pars. 151 (‘issues or passes’ currency), 277 (to ‘make, alter, forge or counterfeit’ or ‘utter, publish, pass or attempt to pass’ records or writings), 278 (‘makes, alters, forgés or counterfeits’ or ‘utters or passes, or tenders in payment’ public securities or bank bills), 279 (to ‘malee, pass, utter or publish’ fictitious bills or notes), 280 (’connects together’ parts of several bills), 401 (to ‘steal, embezzle, alter, corrupt, withdraw, falsify or avoid,’ ‘take off, discharge or conceal,’ ‘forge, deface or falsify,’ or ‘alter, deface or falsify’ public records).) In the context of section 17-3 we see no intended distinction between issuing a document and delivering one. ‘Issue’ and ‘deliver have replaced words such as ‘utter,’ but without producing a change in essential meaning; ‘[t]he words “uttering” or “to utter” have a clear definition in law; they mean substantially “to offer” (People v. Katz (1934), 356 Ill. 440, 445 , [ 190 N.E. 913 ])’ (People v. Henderson (1978), 71 Ill. 2d 53, 57 , 373 N.E.2d 1338, 1340 ). “Thus,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Foster