Thompson v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. “The issue before us is whether counsel’s misadviee may have affected the volitional character of defendant’s plea by denying him the right to make a reasoned decision on whether to proceed to trial on the first-degree murder charge, not whether voluntary intoxication is a defense to the reduced offense of second-degree murder. Manslaughter is a Category 1 lesser-included offense of first-degree murder. If Thompson could persuade a jury that he was intoxicated at the time he killed the victim, he could conceivably be convicted of manslaughter, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison, which is significantly less than the 27 year sentence he received as a result of his negotiated plea of guilty to second-degree murder, which is a first-degree felony punishable by life. There is no more assurance that the defendant would have been found guilty as charged, or of any one of the lesser offenses if he had been correctly advised of a potential defense to the charged offense. In any event, speculation as to a specific offense the jury may find the defendant guilty of if he had elected to proceed to trial does not render his claim of misadviee non-prejudicial. Thompson sufficiently alleged all that was required of him for an ineffectiveness-of-counsel [sic] claim. He asserted and attached deposition testimony taken from witnesses before trial which should have placed his lawyer on notice that the defendant was intoxicated shortly before the commission of the crime.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Duprey v. State