40 Ala. App. 697 - Thomas v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

29 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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““However, habeas corpus does not serve the office of appeal: it must reach some fundamental apparent illegality. Thomas, who was represented by counsel in open court, changed his plea from not guilty to guilty, stood by, and without objection accepted a minimum sentence upon the solicitor’s agreement. See Keene v. State, 37 Ala.App. 713 , 76 So.2d 180 ; Annotation 76 A.L.R. 468 . “His time for appeal now long past, Thomas may not, without trenching on invited error, use the judge’s lapsus lin-guae as a talking point for his freedom. “It is clear by analogy from the answer to the certified question of this court given by our Supreme Court in Ex parte Tanner, 219 Ala. 7 , 121 So. 423 [1929], that the trial judge’s fixing punishment instead of his putting it to a jury is error but not of such degree as to void the judgment. We see no Fourteenth Amendment due process question, Cross v. State of North Carolina, 132 U.S. 131, 140 , 10 S.Ct. 47, 50 , 33 L.Ed. 287 ...; nor under § 6 of our Constitution. “Thomas’s plea of guilt authorized the court to pass judgment on him. Code 1940, T. 15, § 277 [3] , which, on a plea of guilty, permits the trial judge to examine witnesses to determine the character of the offense, is for the benefit of the court and is not mandatory. Martin v. State, 62 Ala. 240 .””

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