Felber v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. “Felber was not merely driving recklessly, heedless of the danger that his driving posed to others. Instead, beginning from the time when the police stopped Felber on Northern Lights Boulevard and boxed him in, Felber consciously used his vehicle as a weapon. In his effort to escape from the police, Felber drove the stolen truck at the police cars and the police officers surrounding him. He then turned north onto Lake Otis Parkway and consciously rammed Stephen Strain's Chevrolet because it was in his way. According to the evidence, Felber did not attempt to slow down even after colliding with Strain's vehicle; instead, he kept the accelerator pedal floored and tried to push the Chevrolet out of his path, until he realized that his stolen truck was hopelessly entangled with the Chevrolet - at which point, Felber fled. Felber's conduct demonstrates a level of blameworthiness far exceeding the conduct of the defendants in our other vehicular homicide decisions. Even if Felber was not consciously trying to kill the police officers and civilians in his path, he consciously and callously placed them in great peril - almost as if he had used a firearm and had repeatedly fired random shots at a crowd.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Graham v. State

2. “sentencing range of 20 to 30 years to serve for first offenders convicted of second-degree murder based on a vehicular homicide. (We discuss the judge's error in more detail in the next section of this opinion.) The judge acknowledged that his interpretation of Felber seemed to put Felber directly at odds with all the prior cases involving multiple-death vehicular homicides where defendants received composite sentences of less than 20 years to serve. But the judge declared that these other appellate decisions were distinguishable because (according to the judge) they”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Graham v. State

3. “the circumstances of Felber's case [supported] a sentence substantially more severe than the Page benchmark range.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Graham v. State