May v. Edwards’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 22 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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We have, on previous occasions, decided what constituted conviction of a felony insofar as enforcement of collateral effects [is] concerned. We have consistently held that, before such effects are enforced, the judgment must not only not be subject to reversal, but it must also have been carried into effect by actual imposition of sentence. See Owen v. State, 86 Ark. 317 , 111 S.W. 466 ; Huddleston v. Craighead County, 128 Ark. 287 , 194 S.W. 17 ; State Medical Board v. Rogers, 190 Ark. 266 , 79 S.W.2d 83 ; Tucker v. State, 248 Ark. 979 , 455 S.W.2d 888 ; Sutherland v. Arkansas Department of Insurance, 250 Ark. 903 , 467 S.W.2d 724 . There is no reason why the word “convicted” should be taken to mean something different, even if Art. 5 § 9 be taken to be self-executing, so that an incumbent must be ousted from office upon being found guilty of an infamous crime, without awaiting the final disposition of the case. A judicial definition of the word “convicted” different from any we have previously given it should not be the basis of the highly penal effect of removal of an incumbent when the legislature has not provided either for removal or suspension before the conviction has become final. Other jurisdictions have held that the word “convicted”, in the same or a similar constitutional provision, is to be given the strict legal meaning we have accorded it in the cases above cited and not its popular meaning, so that a conviction must be based upon a final judgment not subject ”

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