People v. Buckley’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. “‘‘ Clearly in the first instance the penalty could not be increased no matter how many previous convictions were of record against the offender. The legislative intent as to the other two instances is equally clear, when it gave to the court the power to impose a sentence of not less than twenty years to life. The minimum of a term not less than twenty years gave to the court the power to increase such minimum to any number of years according to the previous history of the convicted person, including any number of previous felonies. (People ex rel. Mummiani v. Lawes, 258 App. Div. 643 .) Any increase of the minimum sentence by the court is a matter of form, as under an indeterminate sentence the offender’s imprisonment is at the will of the Parole Board and ‘ an indeterminate sentence is regarded as a sentence for the maximum term prescribed. ’ (People v. Washington, 264 N. Y. 338 .) Whether it was intended to limit the power of the sentencing judge to determine the ultimate incarceration of the offender is beside the point, as by statute it has been so limited. “ Serious consideration of section 1941 of the Penal Law leads to the conclusion that that section does not apply to the punishment provided in section 1048 for murder second degree. As an interesting side light, it is apparent that the crimes of murder first and second degrees are expressly excluded from the fourth offender statute. (Penal Law, § 1942.) There is thus no increased punishment provided by statute in the”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 52 Misc. 2d 571 - People v. Martin