People v. Allen’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A penal statute is unconstitutionally vague if it “forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess as to its meaning and differ as to its application.” Connolly v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385 , 46 S.Ct. 126 , 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926); People v. Jennings, 641 P.2d 276 (Colo.1982). Criminal statutes should be framed with clarity sufficient to inform the persons subject to them of the standards of conduct imposed and to give fair warning of which acts are forbidden. Id. This is not to say, however, that due process of law requires mathematical exactitude in legislative draftsmanship. We have recognized that while the statute must be sufficiently specific to give fair warning of the proscribed conduct, it also must remain “sufficiently general to address the essential problem under varied circumstances and during changing times.” Colorado Auto and Truck Wreckers v. Department of Revenue, 618 P.2d 646 , 651 (Colo.1980). Due process of law is satisfied as long as the statutory terms “are sufficiently clear to persons of ordinary intelligence to afford a practical guide for law-abiding behavior and are capable of application in an evenhanded manner by those responsible for enforcing the law.” People v. Castro, 657 P.2d 932 at 939 (1983), slip op. at 11-12, quoting People ex rel. City of Arvada v. Nissen, 650 P.2d 547, 551 (Colo.1982); see also, e.g., People v. McKnight, 626 P.2d 678 (Colo.1981); People v. Latsis,”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Graves · People v. Powell

2. “[1] Whoever overdrives, overloads, drives when overloaded, overworks, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance, cruelly beats, mutilates, or cruelly kills, or causes or procures to be so overdriven, overloaded, driven when overloaded, overworked, tortured, tormented, deprived of necessary sustenance, cruelly beaten, mutilated, or cruelly killed any animal, and [2] whoever, having the charge or custody of any animal, either as owner or otherwise, [a] inflicts unnecessary cruelty upon the same, or [b] unnecessarily fails to provide the same with proper food, drink, shelter, or protection from the weather, shall for every such offense be punished by imprisonment in jail not exceeding 1 year, or by fine not exceeding $250, or by both such fine and imprisonment. [Emphasis added.]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Tuck v. United States

3. “All 50 states and the District of Columbia have enacted statutes outlawing cruelty to animals. Forty-three other jurisdictions have established a standard of care in terms identical to or synonymous with that of Colorado: “proper,” “adequate,” “sufficient,” or “necessary.” The remaining seven jurisdictions use a standard which is equally general: “neglect” or “unjustifiable pain, suffering or death.” The drafters of the Model Penal Code stated that “[t]he obvious difficulty in defining cruelty cannot be solved by using more words, as the ... typical legislative provision demonstrates,” and resolved the dilemma in the Code by the use of “cruel mistreatment” and “cruel neglect.” Model Penal Code § 250.6 comments to tentative draft No. 13 (1961).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Webb