State v. Wiederien’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

33 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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “‘The goal of statutory construction is to determine legislative intent. We determine legislative intent from the words chosen by the legislature, not what it should or might have said. Absent a statutory definition or an established meaning in the law, words in the statute are given their ordinary and common meaning by considering the context within which they are used. Under the guise of construction, an interpreting body may not extend, enlarge or otherwise change the meaning of a statute.’”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Estate of Ryan Ex Rel. Ryan v. Heritage Trails Associates, Inc. · City of Okoboji, Iowa v. Okoboji Barz

2. ““First, because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly.... Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them.... Third, but related, where a vague statute ‘abut[s] upon sensitive areas of basic First Amendment freedoms,’ it ‘operates to inhibit the exercise of [those] freedoms.’ ””

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

3. “`lack of jurisdiction of the case[]' occurs when the court has subject matter jurisdiction but may not be able to act in a particular case for some reason”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. ALLIANT ENERGY-INTERSTATE POWER v. Duckett