Hollen v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Properly understood, the rule stands for the proposition that a trial court may impose a fully enhanced sentence upon an adequate showing of a single aggravating factor. The rule allows a trial court to focus on the factor or factors that truly warrant an enhanced sentence, without fear that a reviewing court will reverse the court's sentence for lack of sufficient aggravation. The rule should not, however, encourage trial courts imposing enhanced sentences to simply compile a list of virtually every potentially aggravating factor, secure in the belief that even if some of the aggra-vators identified are later found to be invalid, a higher court will separate the wheat from the chaff and still uphold an enhanced sentence on the basis of the general rule that a single aggravator may support an enhanced sentence. We reiterate that it is the trial court's job to identify valid aggravating and mitigating factors, explain why they qualify as such, weigh those factors, and articulate its reasons for imposing its sentence. When, as here, a trial court identifies a number of aggravating factors and explains that they support an enhanced sentence, we must assume that the court considered each factor to have some aggravating value. Unless the trial court either assigns a specific weight to each aggravator in terms of the proportion of an enhancement, or says that any one of the aggravators identified could individually support the enhancement, we are left to guess at the respective wei”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Hollen v. State

2. “suggestion that the trial court is obliged to assign to each aggravating factor a specific proportional weight.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Hollen v. State