In Re Wolfson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 56 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 63 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Petitioner contends that for the 1913 Pennsylvania conviction he did not serve a term in a state prison or federal penitentiary as required by section 644 of the Penal Code. The California information charged and the trial court found that petitioner served the term ‘in a penal institution.’ This is insufficient to bring the prior conviction within section 644, for the phrase ‘penal institution,’ as used by the Legislature in other sections of the Penal Code which deal with repeated offenders, refers to a county jail as well as a state prison or federal penitentiary. Thus section 666 provides for punishment of offenders who have suffered a previous conviction of petty theft and ‘served a term therefor in any penal institution. ’ The ‘penal institution' there referred to must include a county jail, for in California one who is convicted of petty theft and who has suffered no previous conviction can be imprisoned only in a county jail. (Pen. Code, § 490.) “However, the determination of service of a term of imprisonment, a necessary part of the determination of habitual criminality, ‘does not involve the validity or finality of a judgment of conviction, as such,’ and both petitioner and respondent, as already stated, may refer to matters outside the California judgment roll in order to show the actual status of petitioner. (In re McVickers (1946), supra, pp. 271, 272, 279 of 29 Cal.2d [ 176 P.2d 40 ] ; In re Seeley (1946), supra, pp. 298, 299 of 29 Cal.2d [ 176 P.2d 24 ].)””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 108 Cal. App. 2d 615 - In re Gardo

2. “absurd consequences would result if the courts of this state could take evidence to prove, and upon that evidence adjudicate for themselves, that a defendant was not guilty of a crime with which he had been charged, for which he had been tried or to which he had pleaded guilty, and of which he had been convicted in another state”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 33 Cal. 2d 534 - In Re Horowitz