State v. Beach’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In State v. Leisy, 207 Neb. 118 , 295 N.W.2d 715 (1980), citing North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 , 91 S. Ct. 160 , 27 L. Ed. 2d 162 (1970), we held that a plea of guilty, voluntarily and intelligently made, might be accepted even though the defendant professes his innocence, provided there is a factual basis for a finding of guilty. Actually, Alford imposes one additional requirement, and that is that the judge in accepting the plea must have inquired into and sought to resolve the conflict between the waiver of trial and the claim of innocence. “Nor can we perceive any material difference between a plea that refuses to admit commission of the criminal act and a plea containing a protestation of innocence when, as in the instant case, a defendant intelligently concludes that his interests require entry of a guilty plea and the record before the judge contains strong evidence of actual guilt. . . . Because of the overwhelming evidence against him, a trial was precisely what neither Alford nor his attorney desired. Confronted with the choice between a trial for first-degree murder, on the one hand, and a plea of guilty to second-degree murder, on the other, Alford quite reasonably chose the latter and thereby limited the maximum penalty to a 30-year term.” Id. at 37 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 14 Neb. Ct. App. 944 - State v. Drinkwalter