State v. McCoy’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

33 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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “it is quite possible that a defendant may have involuntarily ingested the drugs either through coercion, deception, or secondhand smoke. Accordingly, without some corroborating proof of knowledge and intent, the cases have uniformly held that a positive drug test alone does not prove a defendant’s knowledge of the drug or intent to possess it ... . Moreover, we believe the State’s argument [“that knowledge and intent can be properly inferred from the positive drag test”] impermissibly shifts the burden of proof to Defendants. In our view, it would be difficult if not impossible for a defendant to present credible evidence that he or she ingested drags unknowingly.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 178 N.C. App. 723 - State v. Harris