State v. Sowards’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In other words, if a trial court convicts a defendant and that conviction is reversed on appeal for insufficient evidence, then that defendant may not be retried a second time for that same offense. Greene v. Massey, 437 U.S. 19 , 98 S.Ct. 2151 , 57 L.Ed.2d 15 (1978). This rule has also been extended to capital sentencing hearings that bear the hallmarks of a trial on guilt or innocence. Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430 , 101 S.Ct. 1852 , 68 L.Ed.2d 270 (1981); Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U.S. 203 , 104 S.Ct. 2305 , 81 L.Ed.2d 164 (1984). The dispositive inquiry in this case is whether a noncapital sentencing hearing pursuant to A.R.S. § 13-604.01(B) bears the hallmarks of a trial on guilt or innocence. We believe it does not. When A.R.S. § 13-604.01(B) is invoked, there is a separate sentencing hearing, but we believe that this hearing does not resemble a trial for the purposes of double jeopardy. In making this assessment we look to a number of factors. First, the trial judge alone decides the issue of release status, [footnote omitted]. State v. Turner, 141 Ariz. 470, 475 , 687 P.2d 1225, 1230 (1984); State v. McNair, 141 Ariz. 475, 485 , 687 P.2d 1230, 1240 (1984). While this fact alone is not in any sense dispositive, cf. Arizona v. Rumsey, supra at -, 104 S.Ct. at 2310 , 81 L.Ed.2d at 170 (1984), we believe that it, along with the following factors, should be taken into consideration in determining whether a sentencing procedure bears the hallmarks of a trial. Second, un”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Avila