State v. Bonner’s Empirical Analysis
1998
Citation profile
78 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 78 later decisions — most recently August 2021 · most notably State v. Brim (2010), State v. Rice (2016)
78 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 Gregg v. Georgia · Solem v. Helm · Harmelin v. Michigan · Penry v. Lynaugh · Trop v. Dulles
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 78 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]o assess a challenge to proportionality we first determine whether the sentence appears grossly disproportionate. To accomplish this, we consider the conduct involved, and any relevant past conduct, with utmost deference to the Legislature and the sentencing court. If these circumstances fail to suggest gross disproportionality, our review ends. If, on the other hand, the sentence appears grossly disproportionate, we may, in addition to examining the other Solem factors, conduct an intra- and inter-jurisdictional analysis to aid our comparison or remand to the circuit court to conduct such comparison before resentencing. We may also consider other relevant factors, such as the effect upon society of this type of offense.”
20 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. State v. Stahl · State v. Bruce“[I]f the words “Equal Justice Under Law” call for more than just a lofty inscription, then our vigilance ought to be aroused when extremely divergent sentences are imposed for the same offense. Gross disparity in punishment erodes public confidence in our institutions of justice.... Of course, equal treatment in sentencing does not mean senseless uniformity, but when a sentence is so out of proportion to the offense and so different from, what others have received for the same conduct, then decency and conscious urge us to examine it more closely.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Blair · State v. Piper“To assess a challenge to proportionality we first determine whether the sentence appears grossly disproportionate. To accomplish this, we consider the conduct involved, and any relevant past conduct, with utmost deference to the Legislature and the sentencing court. If these circumstances fail to suggest gross dispro-portionality, our review ends.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. State v. Blair · State v. Buchhold
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.