Carmona v. Ward’s Empirical Analysis
576 F.2d 405 · 1978
Citation profile
35 federal appellate · 17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 67 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2021 · most notably Opinions of the Justices to the House of Representatives (1979), Carmona Et Al. v. Ward, Correctional Commissioner, Et Al. (1979)
35 federal appellate · 17 state decisions — followed in 12 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 21 U.S.C. § 848 (§ 408 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Rizzo v. Goode · Robinson v. State of California · Trop v. Dulles
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 67 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] punishment is “excessive” and unconstitutional if it (1) makes no measurable contribution to acceptable goals of punishment and hence is nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering; or (2) is grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime. A punishment might fail the test on either ground.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“"In assessing the gravity of a criminal offense, the primary consideration is the harm it causes society. The Legislature, in making this assessment, could properly view criminal narcotics sales not as a series of isolated transactions, but as symptoms of the widespread and pernicious phenomenon of drug distribution. Social harm in drug distribution is great indeed. The drug seller, at every level of distribution, is at the root of the pervasive cycle of destructive drug abuse. "Defendants would minimize drug trafficking by arguing that it is not a crime of violence. Because of their illegal occupation, however, drug traffickers do often commit crimes of violence against law enforcement officers and, because of the high stakes, engage in crimes of violence among themselves. "More significant, of course, are the crimes which drug traffickers engender in others. The seller often introduces the future addict to narcotics. The addict, to meet the seller's price, often turns to crime to `feed' his habit. Narcotics addicts not only account for a sizable percentage of crimes against property; they commit a significant number of crimes of violence as well. "Thus the Legislature could reasonably have found that drug trafficking is a generator of collateral crime, even violent crime. And violent crime is not, of course, the only destroyer of men and the social fabric. Drug addiction degrades and impoverishes those whom it enslaves. This debilitation of men, as well as the disruption of”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent““The first prong of the [proportionality] test requires the court to make a judgment as to the seriousness of the crime charged and this of course invites the substitution of the subjective views of the judge for those of the legislature. The concern here is both constitutional and practical. We must observe the doctrine of separation of powers as well as federalism. This emphasizes the need for judicial restraint. A practical consideration, of course, is the institutional limitation on judicial factfinding. The legislature, acting through commissions and committees with funds for counsel, staff and public hearings, is patently better equipped than the judiciary to make the factual and social determinations which underlie any decision as to the gravity of a crime. It is also more attuned to contemporary community standards and can best judge the public’s concern about particular criminal activity. The second prong of the test is even more vulnerable since it calls for a comparison by the judicial branch of the statutory sentence imposed for the crime committed with those imposed for more serious offenses in the same jurisdiction. The problem of determining the gravity of a particular crime is difficult enough without having to make judgments about other crimes. It is rather simple to make a decision that smoking in the subway is not as serious as rape. But comparing the crimes of and punishments for arson and kidnapping, automobile larceny and drunken driving, requires the di”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Bellavia v. Fogg
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.