Scott v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[A] Louisiana court stated in a defamation case that “[a] conviction is a judicial determination of guilt. A forfeiture of bond is a decision by the person charged not to appear for trial, thereby avoiding a judicial determination of guilt or innocence.” Hopkins v. Keith, 348 So. 2d 999, 1002 (La. Ct. App. 1977) (affirming summary judgment for defendant newspaper sued because story failed to fully distinguish between bond forfeiture and conviction, a distinction that is unclear to much of the public). See also 8A Am. Jur. 2d Bail and Recognizance § 113 (1997) (bond forfeiture proceeding “does not involve the guilt or innocence, conviction or acquittal, of any person. Rather, a bail bond forfeiture and the judgment thereon against a surety is a civil action to enforce the surety’s contract with the state”); 8 C.J.S. Bail §§ 5, 160-178 (1988) (discussing purpose and forfeiture of bail bond). This Court has held that a bond forfeiture is equivalent to a conviction when the Legislature has defined it as a conviction by statute ... We have found no case in South Carolina or elsewhere, and the parties have cited none, in which a court explicitly declared that a bond forfeiture is equivalent to a conviction, absent a statute declaring it to be a conviction.”

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