State v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

30 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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[a] defendant need not produce court records that affirmatively prove that counsel was denied in violation of DeRosa if no such records exist. A defendant could testify that the trial judge, when denying counsel, had promised not to impose a sentence of incarceration, or that he or she was indigent at the time but was never questioned about financial resources. To challenge the use of a prior conviction for sentence enhancement purposes based on DeRosa , however, a defendant must show that counsel was denied improperly. As defendants have not met this burden, we affirm their convictions.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. State v. Delisle

2. “Although defendants may have been denied counsel because the trial judge did not intend to impose a sentence of incarceration, it is equally plausible that counsel was denied because defendants were not needy. Given this ambiguity in the records of the prior convictions, defendants were obliged to show that counsel was improperly denied.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. State v. Delisle

3. “[a] prior conviction for which a defendant was denied counsel and sentenced to a suspended sentence may not be used for enhancement purposes, whether or not the defendant was actually imprisoned for the offense.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. State v. Pecora