Scott v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

20 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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “presume that the General Assembly meant what it said and said what it meant. To that end, we must afford the statutory text its “plain and ordinary meaning,” we must view the statutory text in the context in which it appears, and we must read the statutory text in its most natural and reasonable way, as an ordinary speaker of the English language would.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. City of Coll. Park v. Martin · West v. State

2. “seeks to strike a balance between competing social costs. On the one hand, the threat of enforcement of an overbroad law deters people from engaging in constitutionally protected speech, inhibiting the free exchange of ideas. On the other hand, invalidating a law that in some of its applications is perfectly constitutional — particularly a law directed at conduct so antisocial that it has been made criminal — has obvious harmful effects.”

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

3. ““breathing space” and avoid deterring expression that may tend toward the outer boundaries of what is protected, the First Amendment overbreadth doctrine permits courts to invalidate laws burdening protected expression on their face, without regard to whether their application might be constitutional in a particular case.”

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