State v. Nelson’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
39 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 39 later decisions — most recently July 2025 · most notably Harris v. Commissioner of Correction (2004), Statewide Grievance Committee v. Whitney (1993)
39 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 Santobello v. New York · Commissioner v. Engle · State v. Zayas · State v. Thomas · Szarwak v. Warden
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 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“When a guilty plea is induced by promises arising out of a plea bargaining arrangement, fairness requires that such promises be fulfilled by the state. . . . The same concept of fairness ordinarily impels the court, in its discretion, either to accord specific performance of the agreement or to permit the opportunity to withdraw the guilty plea.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“if the state's performance of the agreement is contrary to the reasonable expectations of the defendant.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“essential tool of the criminal justice system”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.