State v. Montoya’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[I]t is incumbent upon a trial court, when it allows a defendant to enter a guilty plea conditioned on his or her right to appeal a certain issue, to make sure the record clearly establishes that resolution of the issue on appeal, one way or another, will necessarily end the prosecution of the case. See Sery, 758 P.2d at 939 . In the case at bar, the trial court should not have accepted the conditional no contest plea since an appeal of the purportedly preserved issue will not necessarily end the prosecution of the case.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Montoya · State v. Harris

2. ““the legal guilt of the defendant exists only if the prosecution’s case rests on admissible evidence. The crux of the dispute is resolution of the alleged error on appeal, not factual guilt or innocence. The conditional plea is tailored to further the resolution of these specific issues at the reasonable expense of any state interest in obtaining finality in the proceedings. The plea continues to serve a partial state interest in finality, however, by establishing admission of the defendant’s factual guilt. The defendant stands guilty and proceedings come to an end if the reserved issue is ultimately decided in the government’s favor.” We see no logical inconsistency between a plea that admits factual guilt — or refuses to contest it — and the preserved claim on appeal that the government is constitutionally barred from being able to prove its ease because of the illegal seizure of evidence.”

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

3. “First, the contested issue must involve the admission of evidence allegedly seized in an illegal manner. Second, the disposition on appeal must effectively bring the prosecution to an end. That is, if the appellate court determines that the trial court did not err in admitting the contested evidence, “[t]he defendant stands guilty and proceedings come to an end.” Conversely, since the legal guilt of the defendant rests on the admission of the contested evidence, if the appellate court determines that the trial court erred in admitting the contested evidence, the “government is constitutionally barred from being able to prove its case because of the illegal seizure of evidence,” and the proceedings necessarily come to an end.”

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