State v. Peeler’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

18 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “When neither the factual underpinnings of the prior decision nor the law has changed, the [c]ourt could not pretend to be reexamining the prior law with any justification beyond a present doctrinal disposition to come out differently from [the prior decision]. To overrule prior law for no other reason than that would run counter to the view repeated in our cases, that a decision to overrule should rest on some special reason over and above the belief that a prior case was wrongly decided.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Skakel v. Comm'r of Corr.

2. “Stare decisis is justified because it allows for predictability in the ordering of conduct, it promotes the necessary perception that the law is relatively unchanging, it saves resources and it promotes judicial efficiency .... It is the most important application of a theory of [decision-making] consistency in our legal culture and it is an obvious manifestation of the notion that [decision-making] consistency itself has normative value.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Sepega v. DeLaura Concurrence

3. “Such justifications include the advent of subsequent changes or development in the law that undermine a decision's rationale ... the need to bring [a decision] into agreement with experience and with facts newly ascertained ... and a showing that a particular precedent has become a detriment to coherence and consistency in the law ....”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Sepega v. DeLaura Concurrence