State v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
63 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 67 later decisions — most recently October 2016 · most notably State v. Ramseur (1987), Rosenberg v. Town of North Bergen (1972)
63 state decisions
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
Relies on Robinson v. State of California · South Carolina v. Katzenbach · Frank Kane v. State of New Jersey · Van Oster v. State of Kansas · Reitz v. Mealey
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.
“The need for a particular or an additional sanction in one area may appear to the legislative mind in different dimensions and proportions — as more acute in one situation than in another. ******** The Legislature has wide discretion in the creation or recognition of different classes of offenders for separate treatment. In pursuing a legitimate objective it may recognize degrees of harm or possible harm and strike at what it feels more urgently needs repression. If there is some reasonable basis for the recognition of separate classes, and if the disparate treatment of the classes has a rational relation to the objective sought to be achieved by the lawmakers, the Constitution is not offended. The transgression arises only when the classification rests on grounds wholly irrelevant to achievement of the State’s objectives; the separate treatment must admit of but one conclusion beyond a rational doubt, i.e., that the basis therefore is arbitrary and unreasonable and without relevance to the legislative goal.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Lagares“If one is greatly disproportionate to the other, or if the punishment goes beyond what appears to be a reasonable expedient to achieve the public purpose as it may be deduced from the legislation, then the penalty will be condemned. [ 58 N.J. at 212 ],”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“It seems to us that addition of a temporary forfeiture of a driver's license to a stated fine or imprisonment as a preventative regulation clearly represents a reasonable exercise of the legislative power to impose limitations upon highway use.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.