People v. Preuss’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A common-sense interpretation of these phrases is that the Legislature did not have in mind the person who had only one criminal episode in which he managed to commit several different crimes. Instead, "repeat" suggests some time interval between crimes, and "persistent" suggests a criminal who continues in his criminal pursuits after these intervals. Neither of these concepts may easily be reconciled with an interpretation of the statute which would allow a court to impose fourth-offender penalties on a defendant whose three prior convictions arose out of the same criminal incident. [ Id. ]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. People v. Gardner

2. “the Court concluded that the statute does not require that a fourth offender's three prior convictions, the sentences for those convictions, or the offenses upon which those convictions and sentences are based, occur in any particular sequence. The statute requires only that the fourth offense be preceded by three convictions of felony offenses, and that each of those three predicate felonies arise from separate criminal incidents. [ Id. at 717 , 461 N.W.2d 703 (emphasis added).]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Gardner

3. “does not contain any express statement concerning the commission's intent regarding whether a defendant's prior convictions, offenses, or sentences must occur in any particular sequence in order for him to be subject to fourth-offender penalties.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Gardner