State v. Sleeper’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “It is clear from this [statutory] language that the predicate acts of sexual assault are not themselves elements of the offense, about which the jury must be unanimous before convicting the defendant. Rather, to convict under this statute, the jury need only unanimously agree that the defendant committed at least three acts of sexual assault of the same child within the specified time period. Where evidence of more than three acts is admitted, the jury need not unanimously agree about the underlying acts as long as it unanimously agrees that the defendant committed at least three. In other words, it is the course of sexually assaultive conduct that constitutes the primary element of this offense, about which the jury must be unanimous ____ Unanimity is explicitly not required regarding the individual acts of sexual assault. After all, the violations of the law about which the jury need not be unanimous under this statutory scheme all involve the sexual abuse of children, crimes of the same or similar nature and level of culpability. It is therefore not unfair or irrational to lift the requirement of jury unanimity as to the specific underlying acts as long as unanimity is required regarding the existence of the course of conduct, defined as at least three acts of sexual assault of the same child.”

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

2. “involving a continuous course of conduct does not require jury unanimity on any specific, discrete act, as that specific act itself is not criminalized”

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

3. “basically morally and conceptually equivalent.”

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