Williams v. Wainwright’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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. “"[A] sentence imposed after probation has been violated can reflect the added basis for evaluating defendant's amenability to reform, namely, his response to probation." * * * * * * Under the authorities cited above, the Court holds that the Petitioner herein has not been subjected to double jeopardy. The cases like North Carolina v. Pearce indicate that only when a defendant is sentenced and then resentenced for precisely the same conduct does double jeopardy come into play. Such is not the case here, because it was the Defendant's violation of probation that triggered the resentencing. The State of Florida has chosen to subject probation violators to the sentence which might have originally been imposed on them in lieu of probation, and because the new sentence is based on the defendant's intervening conduct, the Constitution does not prohibit this.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 404 So. 2d 1055 - State v. Payne · Williams v. Wainwright

2. “[T]he probation system is in effect a reliance on the future to reveal treatment appropriate to the probationer. In the nature of things, knowledge which may thus be gained is not generally available when the moment for conventional sentencing arrives. Since assessment of an appropriate punishment immediately upon conviction becomes very largely a judgment based on speculation, the function of probation is to supplant such speculative judgment by judgment based on experience. * * * * * * We certainly should not countenance the notion that a probationer has a vested interest in the original sentence nor encourage him to weigh the length of such a sentence against any advantages he may find in violating his probation. To bind the court to such a sentence is undesirable in its consequences and violative of the philosophy of probation. * * * * * * It would be strange if the Constitution stood in the way of a system so designed for the humane treatment of offenders. To vest in courts the power of adjusting the consequences of criminal conduct to the character and capacity of an offender, as revealed by a testing period of probation, of course does not offend the safeguard of the Fifth Amendment against double punishment. By forbidding that no person shall "be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb," that Amendment guarded against the repetition of history by trying a man twice in a new and independent case when he already had been tried once, see ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 404 So. 2d 1055 - State v. Payne

3. “[A] sentence imposed after probation has been violated can reflect the added basis for evaluating defendant's amenability to reform, namely, his response to probation.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 404 So. 2d 1055 - State v. Payne