Patrick Earl O'Neal, Jr. v. the State of Texas

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that the context of the words “encourages or induces” indicated “that Congress used them as terms of art” with specialized meaning in criminal statutes
• explaining that “context differentiates” between competing meanings of a term, including “when the choice is between ordinary and specialized meanings”
• explaining that when statutory text invokes a common-law term, the term brings the “old soil” of its common-law origins
• explaining that the choice between ordinary and specialized meaning turns on a provision’s context
• explaining that an overbreadth challenger must demonstrate “that the statute ‘prohibits a substantial amount of protected speech’ relative to its ‘plainly legitimate sweep’” (quoting United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 292 (2008)
• noting that in criminal law, “we would not understand ‘attempt’ in its ordinary sense of ‘try’” and would “instead understand it to mean taking ‘a substantial step’ toward the completion of a crime with the requisite mens rea” (citation modified)

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).