Roach v. Bennett’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. “Whether a person charged with crime is mentally competent to stand trial is a discrete question, governed by different medical and legal standards from the question of mental responsibility. To be competent to stand trial a defendant must have, at the time of his trial, “sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of understanding — and * * * a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him.” A claim that the defendant was not criminally responsible, on the other hand, is unconcerned with the defendant’s understanding of his situation at the time of [the] trial, but is directed entirely to his capacity to understand and to control his conduct at the time of the commission of the offense. . That a defendant may have exhibited such an absence of capacity to control his conduct as to indicate the possibility of a defense of insanity does not, of itself, answer the wholly different question of whether his understanding is presently so limited as to require that he not be tried at all. The one question may have little or no bearing upon the other, for many defendants who may not be held criminally responsible for their unlawful acts are clearly competent to stand trial.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 475 F. Supp. 556 - Wood v. Zahradnick