Townsend v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently March 2014
12 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Davis v. Alaska · Massiah v. United States · United States v. Russell · Sorrells v. United States · Hampton v. United States
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The position advanced ... that the State must rebut entrapment every time police inducement is shown by its evidence even though, as here, the defendant made it clear he was not relying on the defense, is highly problematic. From the defendant's viewpoint, it could be used to effectively wrest control of the defense away from the defendant and his counsel. A minimal showing of inducement could be followed by highly prejudicial and otherwise irrelevant character evidence to prove predisposition. From the State's viewpoint, it is unnecessarily encumbered with a premature burden. We therefore opine that the defendant must in some manner affirmatively raise the defense of entrapment before rebuttal by the State is either necessary or desired. 6 (Citations and footnote 5 omitted.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Gaines v. State““(a) It is a defense that: (1) The prohibited conduct of the person was the product of a law-enforcement officer, or his agent, using persuasion or other means likely to cause the person to engage in the conduct; and (2) The person was not predisposed to commit the offense. (b) Conduct merely affording a person an opportunity to commit the offense does not constitute entrapment.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Baird v. State“Prior to trial, Townsend formally stated that he would not rely on the defense of entrapment. This election was prompted by a desire to keep from the jury prejudicial evidence of predisposition apparently involving prior drug incidents.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Dockery v. State
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.