Phyle v. Duffy’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Where life is at stake one cannot be too careful. I’s had better be dotted and t’s crossed. And so I deem it proper to state my understanding of the opinion of the Court, on the basis of which I concur in it. “We granted certiorari to review a decision of the Supreme Court of California which dismissed habeas corpus proceedings brought in that court. We did so on the assumption that the case raised questions under the Fourteenth Amendment — more particularly, whether an unreviewable determination by the superintendent of a State hospital, that one convicted of murder and found to have become insane after conviction had been restored to sanity and therefore was subject to execution, was consistent with the due process which the Fourteenth Amendment secures. The Court now finds that all that the California Supreme Court did was to hold that as a matter of California procedure the petitioner’s claim could not be passed on by the direct remedy of habeas corpus, but that there is available a special local remedy, labeled mandamus, whereby the petitioner can judicially test his present sanity. In short, the Court dismisses the writ of cer-tiorari because the decision of the court below rests on a purely State ground in that there is a State remedy available, which has not been pursued, by means of which he can secure the rights he claims under the United States Constitution. “Of course I recognize the weight to be attached to the Attorney General’s views regarding the law of Calif”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In re Phyle