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sentence

Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court

Definitions from Case Law

From 298 U.S. 460 - Hill v. United States ex rel. Wampler · 1936Most cited · 573 citing opinions

criminal judgment

The only sentence known to the law is the sentence or judgment entered upon the records of the court. If the entry is inaccurate, there is a remedy by motion to correct it to the end that it may speak the truth. But the judgment imports verity when collaterally assailed. Until corrected in a direct proceeding, it says what it was meant to say, and this by an irrebuttable presumption.

How often courts cite the case defining “sentence”

1930194019601980200020202030118

Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “sentence” — 573 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.