State v. Stubbs’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[A] criminal sentence fixed by the legislature must be proportionate to the crime committed. However, in Harmelin , the United States Supreme Court held that outside of the capital context, there is no general proportionality principle inherent in the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Indeed, the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment does not require strict proportionality between crime and sentence. Rather, it forbids only extreme sentences that are grossly disproportionate to the crime. Only in exceedingly rare noncapital cases will sentences imposed be so grossly disproportionate as to be considered cruel or unusual.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 263 N.C. App. 355 - State v. Seam

2. “within two general classifications. The first involves challenges to the length of term-of-years sentences given all the circumstances in a particular case. The second comprises cases in which the Court implements the proportionality standard by certain categorical restrictions on the death penalty.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 245 N.C. App. 469 - State v. Bowlin

3. “law did not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments). Cf. Solem v. Helm , 463 U.S. 277 , 103 S.Ct. 3001 , 77 L.Ed.2d 637 (1983) (holding that South Dakota's sentence of life without possibility of parole for uttering a”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 263 N.C. App. 355 - State v. Seam