State v. Ayers’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 19 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “It is no novelty in our law to require that for certain crimes juveniles shall be tried as adults in the Superior Court. At the present time, juvenile offenders can be tried in the Superior Court for murder in the first degree, rape, kidnapping, and for the possession or use of molotov cocktails. ****** The matter, that of age classification for purposes of indictment and trial, has always been for the decision of the General Assembly, the policy-making branch of the State Government. The discretion of the General Assembly in setting policy under its police power is, however, not absolute. It may not be arbitrary or capricious; it must be reasonable. When the power is exercised to classify for purpose of trial for crimes, as this is, then the classification must be founded on differences reasonably related to the purposes of the statute in which the classification is made.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Marine v. State · Hughes v. State

2. “(a) A person is guilty of riot when he participates with 2 or more persons in a course of disorderly conduct: “(1) with intent to commit or facilitate the commission of a felony or misdemeanor ; or “(2) with intent to prevent or coerce official action; or “(3) when the accused or any other participant to the knowledge of the accused uses or plans to use a firearm or other deadly weapon.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Miller v. State · Squires v. State

3. ““That the terms of a penal statute creating a new offense must be sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties is a well-recognized requirement, consonant alike with ordinary notions of fair play and the settled rules of law; and a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law. * *”

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