State v. . Goodson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 12 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We have examined with much care and scrutiny the evidence sent up as part of the case stated on appeal, and are of opinion that it was not sufficient to prove the prisoner's guilt, or to go to the jury for that purpose. Accepting the evidence as true, and sufficient to prove the facts to which it related, and giving these facts, severally and collectively, and in their bearing each upon the other, due weight, in any view of them they simply raise a strong suspicion of his guilt. The evidence pointing to the prisoner is circumstantial. The facts may be true; they may be taken, in any combination of them of which in their nature they are capable, and they fail to prove his guilt; they are inconclusive as to the material fact of guilt. . . . This full summary of the incriminating facts, taken in the strongest view of them adverse to the prisoner, excite suspicion in the just mind that he is guilty, but such view is far from excluding the rational conclusion that some other unknown person may be the guilty party. The mind is not simply left in a state of hesitancy and anxious doubt — it refuses to reach a conclusion.”

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