State v. Ragland’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
105 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 111 later decisions — most recently January 2018 · most notably State v. Marshall (1991), State v. Bey (1988)
105 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Duncan v. State of Louisiana · Taylor v. Kentucky · Sparf v. United States · Killian v. United States · Billeci v. United States
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 111 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“... Obviously this same jury, having found possession beyond a reasonable doubt in the first trial, is strongly inclined to find it once again an hour later when the "new" trial starts on the charge of possession by a convicted felon. It becomes essential, therefore, that the jury be instructed in no uncertain terms to consider anew the evidence previously admitted but to disregard completely its prior verdict. That there is a certain make-believe quality in such an instruction must be conceded since it is most unlikely that the jury will indeed forget its prior verdict. Nevertheless, the defendant is entitled to that instruction for on the "new" trial, the defendant is entitled to the presumption of innocence and, as a consequence of that, to an instruction that each and every material fact that makes up the crime, including obviously the fact of possession, must be proven by the State beyond a reasonable doubt.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Bailey · State v. Harris“clearly tends to prejudice the jury in considering”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“If defendant is convicted of unlawful possession of the weapon, the trial of the latter charge (possession by a convicted felon), unless most carefully handled, can amount to a prohibited directed verdict in a criminal case. This, because the jury-has already found by its initial conviction that the defendant possessed a weapon. If the same jury is told, in the immediately following trial of the charge of possession by a convicted felon, that it need not concern itself with the question of possession since it has already that fact by its prior conviction, the defendant is, in effect, deprived of that trial by jury to which he is entitled, namely, one in which the jury must find that the State has proved each and every material element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Absent careful instructions, the jury will have been told, in effect, that it need not find possession beyond a reasonable doubt because it has already found it in the prior trial. [Id. at 193-94, 519 A.2d 1361 (citations omitted).]”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.