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judicial discretion

Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court

Definitions from Case Law

From 287 U.S. 216 - Burns v. United States · 1932Most cited · 1,261 citing opinions

That exercise implies conscientious judgment, not arbitrary action. It takes account of the law and the particular circumstances of the case and is 'directed by the reason and conscience of the judge to a just result.

How often courts cite the case defining “judicial discretion”

1930194019601980200020202030275

Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “judicial discretion” — 1,258 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.