594 So. 2d 310 - Thomason v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Judicial discretion has never been confused with the raw power to choose between alternatives, such as to go or not to go. Nor is judicial discretion unreviewable simply because the trial judge chose an alternative that was theoretically available to him. As he did with so many complex ideas, Justice Cardozo distilled the essence of the thought in a few words: The judge, even when he is free, is still not wholly free. He is not to innovate at pleasure. He is not a knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness. He is to draw his inspiration from consecrated principles. He is not to yield to spasmodic sentiment, to vague and unregulated benevolence. He is to exercise a discretion informed by tradition, methodized by analogy, disciplined by system, and subordinated to "the primordial necessity of order in the social life." Wide enough in all conscience is the field of discretion that remains. B. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process, at 141. Cardozo's insight was applied by the court in Parce [ v. Byrd, 533 So.2d 812 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988), rev. denied, 542 So.2d 988 (Fla. 1989)]: [Judicial discretion] is not a naked right to choose between alternatives. There must be a sound and logically valid reason for the choice made. If a trial court's exercise of discretion is upheld whichever choice is made merely because it is not shown to be wrong, and there is no valid reason to support the choice made, then the choice made may just as well hav”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 595 So. 2d 214 - Kremer v. Kremer

2. “To put it directly, the correct legal principle is that a trial judge may not declare a mistrial — free of double jeopardy consequences — on the basis of an alleged incapacity of defendant's counsel so near the end of the case where defense counsel is present in the courtroom asserting the ability to proceed, and both the State and the defendant expressly agree on the record that counsel is capable and should proceed. The only exception should be where the record demonstrates without contradiction that the alleged incapacity is objectively verifiable. The alleged inability to proceed may not be based solely, or even substantially, on the subjective impressions of the trial judge, and it must be such that it cannot be cured or avoided by another alternative. The Perez standard cannot properly be applied to abort a criminal trial over the collective objection of everyone, where the "disabled" lawyer is in the courtroom proclaiming the readiness to proceed and none of the alternatives to a mistrial were considered or tried.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Thomason v. State

3. “Does double jeopardy preclude a retrial when a trial judge sua sponte, without considering and rejecting all possible alternatives, declares a mistrial based on the subjective impression that defense counsel is not competent to proceed?”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Thomason v. State