159 So. 2d 866 - Fish v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 9 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Since the Gideon case, our Legislature has provided for a public defender to represent indigent defendants in all non-capital felony cases. By limiting the scope of the Act to felonies, the Legislature has, in effect, declared the public policy of this state to be that persons accused of misdemeanors only do not necessarily require the appointment of counsel to assist in their defense. We have carefully read the decision in the Gideon case and find nothing that indicates, conclusively, that it was intended to apply to all crimes — misdemeanors as well as felonies, traffic violations, any infraction of the law for which one is ‘haled into court,’ to quote Mr. Justice Black’s language in the opinion. We have also noted the statement of Mr. Justice Harlan, in his opinion concurring in the judgment, that the question of whether the rule of the Gideon case ‘should extend to all criminal cases need not now be decided.’ “In view, then, of the legislative background — organic and statutory — of this matter, and in the absence of any clear mandate in the Gideon case to apply its rule to misdemeanors as well as felonies, we do not feel that we are authorized to overturn the legislative declaration of the policy of this state in respect to this matter, referred to above.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 10 Ohio App. 2d 51 - City of Toledo v. Frazier