Gardner v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In Blackledge the respondent, already an incarcerated prisoner, was initially charged in North Carolina District Court with misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon. Following a bench trial, the respondent was given a six-month sentence to be served following the expiration of the time he was already serving. Respondent then exercised his statutory right to trial de novo in North Carolina Superior Court. Following the filing of the notice of appeal, the prosecuting attorney obtained an indictment (based on the same conduct) for felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and inflict serious bodily injury. Respondent pleaded guilty to the indictment in Superior Court, and was sentenced to a term of five to seven years to be served concurrently with time already being served. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether the “indictment on the felony charge constituted a penalty for his exercising his statutory right to appeal” in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. Respondent’s due-process arguments were “derived substantially” from Pearce, supra. Blackledge, supra. While the Blackledge Court acknowledged that there was no evidence of prosecutorial bad faith or maliciousness in seeking the felony indictment, “[t]he rationale of our judgment in the Pearce case, however, was not grounded upon the proposition that actual retaliatory motivation must inevitably exist. ❖ * * The Blackledge Court reasoned that the same considera”

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

2. “Due process of law, then, requires that vindictiveness against a defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction must play no part in the sentence he receives after a new trial. And since the fear of such vindictiveness may unconstitutionally deter a defendant’s exercise of the right to appeal or collaterally attack his first conviction, due process also requires that a defendant be freed of apprehension of such a retaliatory motivation on the part of the sentencing judge. In order to assure the absence of such a motivation, we have concluded that whenever a judge imposes a more severe sentence upon a defendant after a new trial, the reasons for his doing so must affirmatively appear. Those reasons must be based upon objective information concerning identifiable conduct on the part of the defendant occurring after the time of the original sentencing proceeding. And the factual data upon which the increased sentence is based must be made part of the record, so that the constitutional legitimacy of the increased sentence may be fully reviewed on appeal.”

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