State v. Fitzgerald’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 4 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[t]he crime of bigamy is defined as the act of marrying or contracting a second marriage while the spouse by a former marriage is still alive and the former marriage is still in force. In the present case the granting of the annulment was done solely for the benefit and convenience of the victim.... The order of annulment had no effect on the actual legal status of the alleged marriage. The ruling of the trial court, if approved, would effectively nullify the offense of bigamy [in Kansas] since under Kansas law a bigamous marriage can never be a valid marriage and is always void. While it is true that [the Kansas bigamy statute] is a penal statute and subject to the rule requiring strict construction in favor of the accused, this rule is subordinate to the rule requiring judicial interpretation to be reasonable and sensible to effectuate the legislative design and intent in enacting the statute. Adoption of the rule pronounced by the trial court would effectively erase the crime of bigamy from our law, an unreasonable interpretation and one clearly contrary to the specific legislative intent. A person cannot be lawfully married and also guilty of bigamy for the same marriage. We find the rationale of our sister states persuasive and hold that when a person enters into a purported marriage contract or relationship at a time when the person already has a living spouse, the crime of bigamy has been committed. Annulment of the second or bigamous marriage is no defense to the crim”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Ali