Hodges v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

34 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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"Under the Constitution of Virginia the right to trial by jury in criminal cases is guaranteed. Va. Const. Art. I, § 8. Moreover, [when] a criminal case is tried by a jury the punishment shall be ascertained by it. Code § 19.1-291, -292. Here the jury fixed [the defendant's] punishment for the ... murder at the maximum permitted at the time of trial. Nevertheless, it would be sheer speculation for us to conclude that, if death had not then been a permissible punishment, the jury would have fixed the punishment at life imprisonment. The jury might well have agreed upon 99 years, as it did for [another] murder [that the defendant had committed]."”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Larry Joe Dargan, Jr. v. Commonwealth · Rawls v. Com.

2. ““ . . . As we are compelled to follow the ruling of the Supreme Court on this question, we must now determine the procedure to be followed in this case and in other similar cases. “We reject Hodges’s contention that he is entitled to a new trial in each case on the issues of guilt and punishment. There is no error in the judgment order entered on the jury verdict in Record No. 8005 finding Hodges guilty of murder in the first degree and fixing his punishment at 99 years for the killing of Ferguson. Furthermore, there is no error in that portion of the judgment ofder entered on the jury verdict in Record No. 8006 finding Hodges guilty of murder in the first degree for the killing of Watson. But the portion of the judgment order sentencing him to death in accordance with the jury verdict must now be set aside. “Without deciding whether we have authority under Article VI, § 6 of the Virginia Constitution and Code § 19.1— 288 to modify the judgment order by reducing the death sentence to life imprisonment, as argued by the Attorney General, we conclude that this case (Record No. 8006) should be remanded for a new trial on the issue of punishment. We have recently approved this procedure where, ‘under newly-announced constitutional principles, a felon’s sentence has been set aside not because the jury that tried him could not constitutionally find him guilty, but because the jury as then constituted could not constitutionally impose the death sentence.’ Snider v. Cox, 212 Va. 13, ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Swain v. State

3. “Out of the presence of the jury, the trial court carefully outlined to counsel the procedure to be followed in proving prior inconsistent statements. Questions were to be propounded to the witness, and if his answers differed from those given to the same questions in the transcript, that portion of the transcript could be read. If the witness denied having made the answers appearing in the transcript a witness could be used to prove that he had answered as reported in the transcript. This impeachment procedure was correct and proper. [Emphasis added.]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Patterson v. Commonwealth