Watrous v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “definite, immediate, and largely automatic effect on the range of the defendant's punishment.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 999 So. 2d 660 - State v. Bolware · 999 So. 2d 1065 - State v. Caswell

2. “First, the Act does not establish culpability for criminal conduct. Rather, the Act provides procedural and substantive rights designed and intended to apply to civil proceedings to ensure that both the state and the individual are provided a full and complete hearing to determine whether the individual is a "sexually violent predator" who needs commitment to a secure facility for care and treatment of their mental abnormality or personality disorder. Second, the individual's past criminal conduct is merely used under the Act as evidence of the individual's mental or personality disorder to determine whether he or she is a sexually violent predator subject to commitment. Third, a finding of scienter is not required to determine whether the person is a sexually violent predator and it is not a prerequisite to commitment under the Act. Furthermore, nowhere in the Act does it provide that commitment is intended to punish the individual for his or her conduct. Rather, the provisions of the Act clearly indicate that commitment is for the purpose of "control, care, and treatment" of the sexually violent predator and the protection of the public from their dangerous behavior. We also find that deterrence is not a goal of commitment under the Act. The Court held in Hendricks that sexually violent predators will probably not be deterred by the threat of commitment because they are, "by definition, suffering from a `mental abnormality' or a `personality disorder' that prevents them fro”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 825 So. 2d 460 - Hudson v. State

3. “[i]t is well-settled that affirmative misadvice regarding even collateral consequences of a plea forms a basis for withdrawing the plea”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ghanavati v. State