State v. Lopez’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he long-accepted rule was that it was constitutionally permissible to provide that various affirmative defenses were to be proved by the defendant. This did not lead to such abuses or to such widespread redefinition of crime and reduction of the prosecution’s burden that a new constitutional rule was required .... Nor does the fact that a majority of the States have now assumed the burden of disproving affirmative defenses for whatever reasons mean that those States that strike a different balance are in violation of the Constitution. Patterson, 432 U.S. at 211 , 97 S.Ct. at 2327 , 53 L.Ed2.d at 292-93.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Longstreth

2. ““the fact that some other lawyer . . . would have done differently ... is no ground for branding the appointed attorney with the opprobrium of ineffectiveness, or infidelity, or incompetency ... As no two men can be exactly alike in the practice of the profession, it is basically unreasonable to judge an attorney by what another would have done, or says he would have done, in the better light of hindsight.” State v. Lopez (1980), Mont., 605 P.2d 178, 180-81 , 37 St.Rep. 36 , 38-9. (Citing Williams v. Beto (5th Cir.1965), 354 F.2d 698, 706 .)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Hall