Bynum v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
153 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 154 later decisions — most recently April 2019 · most notably Studer v. State (1990), Briggs v. State (1990)
153 state decisions
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 Jackson v. Virginia · Grayned v. City of Rockford · Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc. · Connally v. General Construction Co. · Grayned v. City of Rockford
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 154 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A plaintiff who engages in some conduct that is clearly proscribed cannot complain of the vagueness of the law as applied to the conduct of others. A court should therefore examine the complainant's conduct before analyzing other hypothetical applications of the law.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Cain v. State · State v. Garcia“Vague laws offend several important values. 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. Vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning. Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them. A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Lacour v. State · Miller v. State“As a fundamental proposition, all criminal laws must give notice to the populace as to what activity is made criminal so as to provide fair notice to persons before making their activity criminal. The rationale for this is obvious: crimes must be defined in advance so that individuals have fair warning of what is forbidden. As the Supreme Court has stated: a lack of notice poses a “trap for the innocent ...,” United States v. Cardiff, 344 U.S. 174, 176 , 73 S.Ct. 189, 190 , 97 L.Ed. 200 (1952) and “violates the first essential of due process.” Connolly v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385 , 46 S.Ct. 126 , 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Lacour v. State · Baker v. State
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.