Pace v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 69 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 73 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ * * * The legislature has not given a right to a defendant to receive a mental examination whenever he requests one. Absent such a right, machinery for screening requests must exist. The legislature has made the trial court this screening agent. We cannot say under our past cases that the appellant’s showing was so compelling that the trial court abused its discretion in denying this petition. The trial court held a hearing, listened to the witnesses and made a decision. It might have decided either way on the question of whether the hearing produced any real evidence of legal insanity or legal incompetence. Its decision was not arbitrary or unsupported by reason or fact. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion.””

   8 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 51 Ala. App. 470 - Barnett v. State · 45 Ala. App. 391 - Brown v. State

2. “Matters resting in the sound discretion of the trial court will not be disturbed, absent a clear abuse of discretion.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hulsey v. State · 339 So. 2d 100 - Roberson v. State

3. ““It is urged by the appellant that he presented enough evidence to raise a clear reasonable doubt of his sanity or competency and that the trial court abused its discretion in denying his petition for an examination. In Lokos v. State, 278 Ala. 586 , 179 So.2d 714 , this court held that a showing by defendant, on a petition for a mental examination, that he had been confined in a mental institution on several occasions and that he had received shock and insulin treatments was not a sufficient showing to warrant reversal of the trial court’s decision to deny the petition. In that case, we said: ‘However we may have individually acted at nisi prius in view of the fact that the appellant had previously been confined in a mental institution and is a nonresident, who was not only without funds but without family or friends in this state to assist him in securing witnesses in support of his plea of insanity, we cannot under our previous decisions hold that the trial court’s action in overruling the motion for the appointment of three experts in the field of mental disorders works a reversal of the judgment below. ‡ ^ >”

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