State v. Gonzalez’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The primary purpose of the charge to the jury is to assist [it] in applying the law correctly to the facts which [it] find[s] to be established.... [A] charge to the jury is to be considered in its entirety, read as a whole, and judged by its total effect rather than by its individual component parts.... [T]he test of a court's charge is not whether it is as accurate upon legal principles as the opinions of a court of last resort but whether it fairly presents the case to the jury in such a way that injustice is not done to either party under the established rules of law.... Although [a] request to charge which is relevant to the issues of [a] case and which is an accurate statement of the law must be given ... a refusal to charge in the exact words of a request ... will not constitute error if the requested charge is given in substance.... Thus, when the substance of the requested instructions is fairly and substantially included in the trial court's jury charge, the trial court may properly refuse to give such instructions.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 184 Conn. App. 685 - Farrell v. Johnson & Johnson