State v. Coutcher’s Empirical Analysis
1967
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 58 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 60 later decisions — most recently February 2025 · most notably State v. Freeman (1978), State v. McDaniel & Owens (1980)
2 federal appellate · 58 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 Weems v. United States · Chandler v. Warden Fretag · James Graham v. State of West Virginia · Charles Carlesi v. People of the State of New York · Western Natural Gas Co. v. Cities Service Gas Co.
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 60 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"`What constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment has not been exactly decided. It has been said that ordinarily the terms imply something inhuman and barbarous, torture and the like. McDonald v. Commonwealth, 173 Massachusetts, 322. The court, however, in that case conceded the possibility "that imprisonment in the State prison for a long term of years might be so disproportionate to the offense as to constitute a cruel and unusual punishment." ...'"”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The exercise of discretion by a county attorney in seeking to invoke the provisions of the habitual criminal act (K. S. A. 21-107a) without a showing of discrimination by reason of willful, arbitrary, designed, deliberate, intentional or concerted action, does not deprive one of due process or equal protection of the law guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution in a case where an enhanced penalty was imposed under the act.” (Syl. ¶[ 2.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Shaw
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.