In re Spickler’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate ·

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

1. ““I do not question the existence of the power in the United States circuit court to grant writs of habeas corpus when it is alleged that a person is deprived of his liberty by state action contrary to the provisions of the federal constitution, but it is a power to be sparingly exercised. When it appears that the petitioner is held under the judgment of a state court of competent jurisdiction, before this court should grant him a discharge it should be made to appear that the Illegality of his detention is beyond question; and in all eases wherein the pivotal point has not been finally decided by the supreme court, but still remains a debatable question, the circuit court should not discharge the petitioner, for this would he simply converting the writ of habeas corpus into a writ of error, by means of which this court would be asked to review-the judgment of the state court upon a debatable question of law arising trader the federal constitution, but w-hich it w-as the duty of that court to investigate and decide.””

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