Wheeler v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

18 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(4)(a) Whoever, in the course of one criminal transaction or episode, commits an act or acts which constitute one or more separate criminal offenses, upon conviction and adjudication of guilt, shall be sentenced separately for each criminal offense; and the sentencing judge may order the sentences to be served concurrently or consecutively. For the purposes of this subsection, offenses are separate if each offense requires proof of an element that the other does not, without regard to the accusatory pleading or the proof adduced at trial. (b) The intent of the Legislature is to convict and sentence for each criminal offense committed in the course of one criminal episode or transaction and not to allow the principle of lenity as set forth in subsection (1) to determine legislative intent. Exceptions to this rule of construction are: 1. Offenses which require identical elements of proof. 2. Offenses which are degrees of the same offense as provided by statute. 3. Offenses which are lesser offenses the statutory elements of which are subsumed by the greater offense.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 560 So. 2d 311 - Williams v. State

2. “Whether the Florida Legislature intended separate convictions and sentences for possession of a controlled substance with the intent to sell and sale of the same controlled substance, arising out of the same criminal transaction, when both offenses appear to be alternate ways of violating section 893.13(l)(a), Florida Statutes (1987)? Whether the supreme court’s approval of Gordon v. State, 528 So.2d 910 (Fla. 2d DCA 1988), in State v. Smith, 547 So.2d 613 (Fla.1989), was intended to overrule its earlier opinion in Smith v. State, 430 So.2d 448 (Fla.1983)? If Smith v. State, 430 So.2d 448 (Fla. 1983), has been implicitly overruled by State v. Smith, 547 So.2d 613 (Fla.1989), should the schedule of lesser included offenses contained in the Florida Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases (2d Ed., Supp.1987), be amended to re- fleet that possession is a category one, necessarily included offense of sale?”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 549 So. 2d 702 - Wilson v. State

3. “would have proscribed each offense in separate subsections of the statute, as it did with simple possession of a controlled substance in section 893.13(1)(e).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 548 So. 2d 797 - St. Fabre v. State