Smith v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. ““This same argument has been used in situations where an appellant has been successful in obtaining a reversal of a conviction and then has argued that a second trial would amount to double jeopardy. In North Caroline v. Pearce (1969), 395 U.S. 711 , 89 S.Ct. 2072 , at pages 2079-2080, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 , the United States Supreme Court addressed itself to this problem and at page 723 stated: ‘We hold, therefore, that neither the double jeopardy provision nor the Equal Protection Clause imposes an absolute bar to a more severe sentence upon reconviction. A trial judge is not constitutionally precluded, in other words, from imposing a new sentence, whether greater or less than the original sentence, in the light of events subsequent to the first trial that may have thrown new light upon the defendant’s “life, health, habits, conduct, and mental and moral propensities.” Williams v. New York, [1949], 337 U.S. 241, 245 , 69 S.Ct. 1079, 1082 , 93 L.Ed. 1337, 1341 . Such information may come to the judge’s attention from evidence adduced at the second trial itself, from a new presentence investigation, from the defendant’s prison record, or possibly from other sources. The freedom of a sentencing judge to consider the defendant’s conduct subsequent to the first conviction in imposing a new sentence is no more than consonant with the principle, fully approved in Williams v. New York, supra, that a State may adopt the “prevalent modern philosophy of penology that the punishment should f”

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

2. “[I]f courts are to be encouraged to give suspended sentences, they must be given the latitude allowed within the plain wording of the statute to insure that a defendant accepting the terms of probation will do so with full realization of the gravity of the consequences of the violation of that probation.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 206 W. Va. 573 - State v. Richards

3. “may cause the sentence imposed to be executed or impose any sentence which might originally have been imposed”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 206 W. Va. 573 - State v. Richards