Ward 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. “"First, implicit in the language of § 13A-5-6(a)(5) — `a firearm or deadly weapon was used or attempted to be used in the commission of the felony' — is the requirement that the underlying felony for which the defendant is convicted have, as one of its necessary elements, the element of intentional criminal conduct. Therefore, [the defendant's] reckless or negligent conduct, which resulted in manslaughter, while sufficient to supply the criminal scienter to support a conviction for a Class C felony, does not require a finding that he intentionally used the firearm to commit the felony, and thus cannot support the application of § 13A-5-6(a)(5). In other words, reading § 13A-5-6 as a whole, we must construe subsection (a)(5) to mean that convictions for those underlying felonies that are committed without the intentional use of a weapon do not fall within the category of convictions that invoke the enhancement provision of this statute. "Second, `enhancement,' as that word is used to describe the effect of § 13A-5-6(a)(5), necessarily means that in addition to the culpability of the offense for which the defendant has been convicted, the defendant's conduct is necessarily the result of a higher degree of culpability, because of the jury's finding that a `firearm or deadly weapon was used or attempted to be used in the commission of the felony.' Indeed, the use of a deadly weapon to commit the underlying felony is the classic situation intended by the legislature to invoke the ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 710 So. 2d 477 - Railey v. State