Simms v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 5 district · 168 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 184 later decisions — most recently August 2024 · most notably State v. Lancaster (1993), State v. Jenkins (1986)
3 federal appellate · 5 district · 168 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Blockburger v. United States · Gregg v. Georgia · Weems v. United States · Illinois Power Co. v. Local Union No. 51, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers · Ryan v. United States
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 184 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]hen a defendant is charged with a greater offense and a lesser included offense based on the same conduct, with jeopardy attaching to both charges at trial, and when the defendant is convicted only of the lesser included charge, he may not receive a sentence for that conviction which exceeds the maximum sentence which could have been imposed had he been convicted of the greater charge.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[s]ome 'simple assaults' may involve more brutal or heinous conduct than may be present in other cases falling within one of the statutory aggravated assaults”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Turning to the two cases before us, it is clear from Johnson v. State, supra, 283 Md. at 203-204 [ 388 A.2d 926 ], that if Simms and Thomas had been convicted of assault with intent to rob, as well as the included offense of simple assault, whether by the jury or as a result of a guilty plea, the maximum sentence which each lawfully could have received would have been ten years’ imprisonment. It is only because each defendant was acquitted on the assault with intent to rob charge that the longer twelve year sentences arguably became legally permissible. But for the acquittals, each defendant would of necessity have received lighter sentences. “To uphold the twelve year sentences under these circumstances would be to sanction an extreme anomaly in the criminal law. It would permit a defendant to be punished more severely because of an acquittal on a charge. He would have fared better if he were less successful or had pled guilty to the greater charge of assault with intent to rob.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Johnson v. State · Thomas v. State
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.