Lee v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 11 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The particular objection to the statute is that it authorizes imprisonment for debt.' We do not so understand the statute. The charge against the defendant was, not that he refused to pay a debt he had contracted, but that he ran away from the hard labor imposed on him as a punishment for the offense he had committed. He had not worked out the sentence to hard labor, to which he had been coridemned. The statute * * * offers to convicted offenders the opportunity of selecting their own task master, the kind of service they will render, and of having a voice in the measure of compensation. * * * The confessed judgment, and the contract approved by the court, do not satisfy the offended law, nor pay the penalty imposed. They are but the condition on which the offender is permitted to select how and whom he will serve, in satisfying the broken law. No one would question the constitutionality of a statute, making it indictable for one sentenced to hard labor, to escape or flee from the service.- We regard the present statute as substantially that identical thing, tempered to the' offender by a humane impulse; and hence we hold it constitutional.””

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

2. ““Where the foundation of the injury complained of was the nonpayment of a debt—a debt created by contract—then by no device could the debtor be imprisoned for its nonpayment.””

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