Jones v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Although this Court and the Review panel [in the Jonesi case] lacked jurisdiction to review the appellant’s sentence, Art. II, § 20 of the Constitution of Maryland gives the Governor the ‘power to grant reprieves and pardons’ and under this provision and those of Code (1965 Repl. Vol.), Art. 41, § 120, many governors have commuted sentences.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Jones v. State · Bartholomey v. State

2. ““Imposition of the penalty of death for rape does not violate the proscription of Article 16 of the Declaration of Rights of the Constitution of Maryland against cruel and unusual punishment. Dutton v. State, 123 Md. 373, 385 , 91 A. 417 . Almost always the matter of sentence in Maryland is within the province of the trial judge, and his choice, if it is within the limits of the law, will not be changed on appeal. The law on the point was precisely set out in Reid v. State, 200 Md. 89, 92-93 , 88 A. 2d 478 , 479: “ ‘The imposition of sentence in a criminal case in this State is a matter peculiarly within the province of the trial judge who hears the case and sees the witnesses and the accused. It is not cruel and unusual punishment if it is within the statutory limits prescribed for the crime of which the accused is found guilty, and the trial court alone has the right to determine the penalty within these limits. * * * The sentence in the case before us is within the statutory limit. * * * We have been referred to several cases from other jurisdictions which allow their appellate courts to review sentences. * * * As we have pointed out, the law in this State is different, and we have no such power, so that the decisions in these cases are not authority for our taking any such action. “ ‘Where the punishment is grossly and inordinately disproportionate to the offense, “so that the sentence is evidently dictated not by a sense of public duty, but by passion, prejudice, ill-wil”

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

3. ““The appellant does not suggest that the guilty verdict was wrong or unjustified. He urges only that Judge Prendergast abused his discretion in imposing the death penalty because the victim has physically recovered, the defendant is young and the psychiatrist who had examined him on behalf of the State and the psychiatrist he had selected to examine him, although unanimously agreeing that the youth was sane, recommended that the death penalty not be imposed and that confinement at Patuxent Institution be substituted.””

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