State v. Copeland’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
3 district · 141 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 145 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably Valcarce v. Fitzgerald (1998), State v. Menzies (1994)
3 district · 141 state decisions — followed in 10 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Boykin v. Alabama · Brady v. United States · Santobello v. New York · McCarthy v. United States · Howard v. United States
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 145 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(4) The court shall in its sentence order hospitalization at the Utah State Hospital or other suitable facility if, upon completion of the hearing and consideration of the record, the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that: (a) the defendant has a mental illness as defined by Subsection 76-2-305(4); (b) because of his mental illness the defendant poses an immediate physical danger to others or self, which may include jeopardizing his own or others’ safety, health, or welfare if placed in a correctional or probation setting, or lacks the ability to provide the basic necessities of life, such as food, clothing, and shelter, if placed on probation; [[Image here]] (e) the Utah State Hospital or other suitable facility can provide the defendant with treatment, care, and custody that is adequate and appropriate to the defendant’s conditions and needs. 1”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“shock[s] the moral sense of all reasonable men as to what is right and proper under the circumstances.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[A] plea of guilty entered by one fully aware of the direct consequences, including the actual value of any commitments made to him by the court, prosecutor, or .his own counsel, must stand unless induced by threats!,] .. misrepresentation!,] ... or perhaps by promises that are by their nature improper ....”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.