State v. Doucette’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 2 district · 49 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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The rationale for the felony murder rule, according to La-Fave and Scott, is that the defendant is a “bad person” because he or she is committing a felony, so society should not concern itself with the fact that the result accomplished (a death) may have been very different from the result the person actually intended. W. LaFave & A. Scott, supra, at 660. This rationale, however, violates one of the criminal law’s most basic principles: a person is not criminally liable for causing a bad result if he or she did not have some culpable mental state with respect to that result.... The common law felony murder doctrine violates this basic principle by holding liable for murder a person whose felonious act results in a homicide, regardless of whether that homicide occurred intentionally, recklessly, negligently, or accidentally. Aaron, supra, 409 Mich, at 708-09, 299 N.W.2d at 317. The felony murder rule ‘“erodes the relation between criminal liability and moral culpability,’” Id. at 708, 299 N.W.2d at 317 (quoting People v. Washington, 62 Cal. 2d 777, 783 , 402 P.2d 130, 134 , 44 Cal. Rptr. 442, 446 (1965)), and therefore does not accord with the principles underlying our modern criminal justice system. (3) (Citas omitidas.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Pueblo v. Rivera Torres