State v. Ward’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Unlike the Eighth Amendment, article 1, section 9 of the Maine Constitution explicitly separates the two protections into an affirmative command and a prohibition: 'All penalties and punishments shall be proportioned to the offense'; 'nor shall cruel nor unusual punishments be inflicted.'”

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

2. “we are mindful that only the most extreme punishment decided upon by the Legislature as appropriate for an offense could so offend or shock the collective conscience of the people of Maine as to be unconstitutionally disproportionate, or cruel and unusual.”

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

3. “Under the Maine Constitution, whether a punishment is unconstitutionally disproportionate to the offense committed or is otherwise cruel or unusual are closely related, but not identical, questions.”

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