193 N.C. App. 597 - State v. Bowden’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 10 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Defendant asks our Court to take judicial notice of a statement contained in the State’s brief in State v. Richardson, 295 N.C. 309 , 245 S.E.2d 754 (1978), and we grant defendant’s request. An appellate court may take judicial notice of the public records of other courts within the state judicial system. Whitmire v. Cooper, 153 N.C. App. 730 , 735 n.4, 570 S.E.2d 908 , 911 n.4 (2002), disc, review denied, appeal dismissed, 356 N.C. 696 , 579 S.E.2d 104 (2003). Accordingly, we take judicial notice of the following sentence: “The State agrees with the defendant that credit is now provided to those serving a life sentence since N.C.G.S. § 14-2 makes a life sentence equivalent to 80 years.” Here, the State concedes to what defendant is currently arguing. Our judicial notice of this sentence is dispositive to the issue of whether defendant’s life sentence is equivalent to 80 years for purposes other than parole eligibility.”

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

2. “Even without our judicial notice of the statement above, we still hold that N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-2 (1974) treats defendant’s life sentence as an 80-year sentence for all purposes. Our Supreme Court has previously considered a life sentence to be equivalent to 80 years, pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-2 (1974), for purposes other than parole eligibility. See State v. Williams, 295 N.C. 655, 679 , 249 S.E.2d 709, 725 (1978); see also Richardson, 295 N.C. at 318-19 , 245 S.E.2d at 760-61 . In Richardson , our Supreme Court considered the defendant’s life sentence to be the equivalent of 80 years for purposes of determining his pretrial incarceration credit. Id. In Williams , our Supreme Court decided that each of the defendant’s life sentences was equal to 80 years for purposes of adding his consecutive sentences and determining his total sentence of 300. years. Williams, 295 N.C. at 679-80 ; 249 S.E.2d at 725 .”

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

3. “We do not read this statute to be ambiguous nor do we find that it must be read in conjunction with N.C. Gen. Stat. § 148-58 (1974). The plain language of the statute states that life imprisonment shall be considered as a sentence of imprisonment for a term of 80 years in the State’s prison without any limitation or restriction. We are not permitted to inteipolate or superimpose provisions or limitations which are not contained in the text of the statute. Sonopress, Inc. v. Town of Weaverville, 139 N.C. App. 378, 383 , 533 S.E.2d 537, 539 (2000). Had our Legislature intended that N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-2 (1974) only apply when determining a prisoner’s parole eligibility, it would have been a simple matter to have included that explicit phrase. See In re Appeal of Bass Income Fund, 115 N.C. App. 703, 706 , 446 S.E.2d 594, 596 (1994).”

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