Adams v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

40 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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Outside the context of the death penalty, of extreme cases such as life imprisonment as punishment for overtime parking, and ... of life without parole for a juvenile convicted of non-homicide crimes, successful challenges to the proportionality of legislatively mandated terms of imprisonment should be “exceedingly rare.” [Cit.] Where, as here, no categorical Eighth Amendment restriction applies, we must in the following manner “determin(e) whether a sentence for a term of years is grossly disproportionate for a particular defendant’s crime. A court must begin by comparing the gravity of the offense and the severity of the sentence. (Cit.) ‘(I)n the rare case in which (this) threshold comparison . . . leads to an inference of gross disproportion-ality’ the court should then compare the defendant’s sentence with the sentences received by other offenders in the same jurisdiction and with the sentences imposed for the same crime in other jurisdictions.” [Cit.] We have “emphasize(d) that it is the ‘rare case( )’ in which the threshold inference of gross disproportionality will be met and a rarer case still in which that threshold inference stands after further scrutiny. (Cit.)” Humphrey v. Wilson, [ 282 Ga. 520 ,] 532 (3) (g) [( 652 SE2d 501 ) (2007)] (a rare case because of the legislative sea change in the punishment for consensual teenage oral sex). “ ‘(A) sentence which is not otherwise cruel and unusual does not become so simply because it is “mandatory.” (Cit.)’ (Cit.) ‘Leg”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Conley v. Pate · Jones v. State

2. “it is the rare case in which the threshold inference of gross disproportionality will be met and a rarer case still in which that threshold inference stands after further scrutiny.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. PATTERSON v. the STATE. · Conley v. Pate

3. “Where, as here, the State alleges a certain range of dates in an indictment and does not specifically allege that those dates are material, the State is not restricted at trial to proving that the crimes occurred within that range of dates. State v. Layman, 279 Ga. 340, 341 ( 613 SE2d 639 ) (2005). “And, if there is a variation between the date alleged and the date proved at trial, the variance does not entitle a defendant to a new trial unless it prejudiced the defense.” State v. Layman, supra.”

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