184 W. Va. 579 - State v. Ross’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently October 2017
1 federal appellate · 20 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on 164 W. Va. 216 - State v. Vance · 172 W. Va. 266 - State v. Cooper · 166 W. Va. 202 - State v. Houston · 173 W. Va. 243 - State v. Buck · State v. Vance
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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The first [test] is a subjective test and asks whether the sentence for a particular crime shocks the conscience of the Court and society. If the sentence is so offensive that it cannot pass this test, then inquiry need proceed no further. When it cannot be said that a sentence shocks the conscience, a disproportionality challenge should be resolved by more objective factors which include the consideration of the nature of the offense, the defendant’s past criminal history, and his proclivity to engage in violent acts.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“In determining whether a given sentence violates the proportionality principle found in Article III, Section 5 of the West Virginia Constitution, consideration is given to the nature of the offense, the legislative purpose behind the punishment, a comparison of the punishment with what would be inflicted in other jurisdictions, and a comparison with other offenses within the same jurisdiction.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“a compendium of discursive, subjective observations_”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.