State v. Ingham’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Vague laws give police officers, prosecutors, judges, and juries the authority to decide what the law is on an ad hoc basis—all without the political accountability inherent in the legislative process.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. State v. Harris · Hodes & Nauser, MDs v. Kobach

2. “If the error infringes upon a right guaranteed by the United States Constitution, the error may be declared harmless where the party benefitting from the error proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of will not or did not affect the outcome of the trial in light of the entire record, i.e., where there is no reasonable possibility that the error contributed to the verdict. Ward, 292 Kan. 541 , Syl. ¶ 6.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Macomber

3. “Vague laws also threaten to transfer legislative power to police and prosecutors, leaving to them the job of shaping a vague statute's contours through their enforcement decisions.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Hodes & Nauser, MDs v. Kobach