Thomas v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[W]e think it to be a reasonable interpretation of plea agreements such as the one involved here that, when a prosecutor recommends deferred adjudication in exchange for a defendant’s plea of guilty or nolo contendere, the trial judge does not exceed that recommendation if, upon proceeding to an adjudication of guilt, he later assesses any punishment within the range allowed by law. That is because a defendant who trades a plea of guilty or nolo contendere for a recommendation by the prosecutor that a judgment of guilt be delayed while he serves a period of community supervision necessarily accepts, at least in the absence of some express agreement to the contrary, that the prosecutor is making no recommendation at all concerning the term of years he may be required to serve if his probation is later revoked and the trial court proceeds to adjudicate him guilty of the charged offense. In the instant cause, while it is true that the prosecutor did not recommend appellant be punished with ten years in the penitentiary should the trial court later enter a judgment of conviction in her case, the punishment of ten years actually as sessed against her when her probation was revoked did not amount to refusal by the trial judge to implement the plea bargain. What the prosecutor recommended, and what appellant did in fact receive, was probation under a deferred adjudication order. Only if the prosecutor had also recommended that a period of incarceration less tha[n] ten years be impos”

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