Slansky v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 4 district · 79 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 89 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"[i]n the trial of all criminal cases, the Jury shall be the Judges of Law,””

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Dillon v. State · Stevenson v. State

2. “It was argued, that the true interpretation of these words authorized the jury to judge of the constitutionality of the Act of Assembly. In this opinion I do not concur. The debates which took place in the Convention that framed the Constitution, show what were the reasons that induced the adoption of the section.... It was well known that some members, both of the judiciary and the profession, held, that juries in criminal cases were the judges of law as well as fact, whilst others held a directly contrary opinion. It is not now important to inquire on which side there was a preponderance of authority and reason. When the meaning of the terms are fixed, there is an end to controversy in regard to the relative powers of court and jury. So far as I know, there is no instance in which a court admitted that the words, "judges of law as well as fact," authorized the jury to decide on the constitutionality of a law. With those who insisted upon the enlarged power conferred by the words in our Constitution, there was no pretense that it authorized a judgment by a jury of the constitutionality of an Act of Congress or of the State Legislature. All they contended for was, that in a criminal case the jury were not bound to abide by the interpretation of the court of the meaning of a law, but were free to construe and apply it according to their own judgments. They never pretended the jury had the right to decide on the constitutionality of an Act defining murder, arson or any other cr”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Stevenson v. State

3. “In England the question whether the jury should have the right to decide the law in criminal cases was for centuries the subject of controversy. But at the time of American independence the prevailing rule of the common law in England was that the court should judge the law, and the jury should apply the law to the facts. This doctrine was condemned by some of the Colonial statesmen, notably John Adams, who believed that the juries should be entitled to disregard the arbitrary and unjust rulings of the judges holding office by authority of the Crown.... In some of the New England Colonies it was fully understood that the judges held office not for the purpose of deciding causes, for the jury decided all questions of both law and fact, but merely to preserve order and see that the parties were treated fairly before the jury. This procedure received patriotic justification as increasingly oppressive measures were taken by royal officials.... The restrictions upon the province of the judges in this State were thus due less to the English practice than to the habits to which they themselves had become accustomed in administering the law of the Colonies.... "The colonists had had experience of the close connection of criminal law with politics. .. . [T]heir constant fear of political oppression through the criminal law led them and the generation following ... to give excessive power to juries and to limit or even cut off the power of the trial judge to control the trial and hold ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Stevenson v. State