People v. Abrahamsen’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The question is whether the procedures followed by the district attorney violated the concept of fundamental fairness guaranteed by the due process clause of the federal and Colorado constitutions. In both the county court and the district court, the defendant was prepared for trial and in both courts the actions were dismissed by the district attorney through no fault of the defendant. The repeated filings of essentially the same charges against the defendant and the pattern of dismissal of counts, followed by refiling of the same counts, required the defendant to make multiple court appearances and subjected the defendant to excessive expense in defending himself, and to unwarranted prolonged anxiety and concern under the circumstances. In addition, defendant was placed under the cloud of undetermined criminal charges for an indeterminate and unreasonable period of time by the procedures adopted by the district attorney. “We conclude that the methods employed by the district attorney to keep the prosecution of the defendant alive, although procedurally within the law, in fact violated the due process requirement of fundamental fairness.” People v. Abrahamsen, 176 Colo. 52 , 489 P.2d 206 (1971).”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. People v. Aragon · People v. Marshall