Hanson v. Smyth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 25 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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[B]y the weight of authority, in the absence of a constitutional provision that a felony may be prosecuted only by indictment, a judgment of conviction is not amenable to a collateral attack in a habeas corpus proceeding on the ground that there is no proper record of the fact that the grand juiy found an indictment against the accused. Such irregularity or defect may be attacked only directly by an appeal from the judgment of conviction. While the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution requires a presentment or indictment in prosecutions under Federal statutes “for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime,” the Virginia Constitution contains no such requirement. In this State the requirement is merely statutory. . . . Since the statutory requirement for an indictment in the present case is not jurisdictional, the failure of the record to show affirmatively that the indictment was returned into court by the grand jury is not such a defect as will render null and void the judgment of conviction based thereon.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Thornhill v. Smyth · Epps v. Commonwealth

2. “it is essential to the validity of an indictment that it affirmatively appear by an entry in the order book that the indictment was returned by the grand jury into open court,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Epps v. Commonwealth