Bryant v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In its review of a challenged statute, the court will begin with a presumption of constitutionality. Thus, the burden to establish unconstitutionality falls upon the challenger. Ex parte Granviel, 561 S.W.2d 503, 511 (Tex.Crim.App.1978); Kaczmarek v. State, 986 S.W.2d 287, 292 (Tex.App.-Waco, 1999[, no pet.]). There are two basic requirements for a constitutional vagueness challenge that does not involve a First Amendment right. First, the challenger must demonstrate that he has suffered some actual or threatened injury under the statute. In other words, the challenger must have standing to contest the statute. Texas Workers’ Compensation Comm’n v. Garcia, 893 S.W.2d 504, 517-18 (Tex.1995). Then, the challenger must also show that the statute is imper-missibly vague in “all of its applications.” Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 494-495 , 102 S.Ct. 1186 , 71 L.Ed.2d 362 (1982). In Kaczmarek , this court set the standard for evaluating vagueness in a criminal statute. The statute must provide an ordinary, “law-abiding” individual with sufficient notice that his conduct is violative of criminal law. Kaczmarek, 986 S.W.2d at 292 . The statute must also provide explicit standards to law enforcement personnel to prevent arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement. To successfully show that the statute is unconstitutionally vague on its face, the challenge must establish that “no set of circumstances exists under which the statute will be vali”

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