158 N.C. App. 563 - State v. Mays’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Now Members of the Jury, for a person to be guilty of a crime it is not necessary that he personally do all of the acts necessary to constitute the crime. If two or more persons join in a common purpose to commit conspiracy to traffic by possession of four hundred grams of cocaine, each of them, if actually present or constructively present is not only guilty of that crime if the other person commits the crime, he is also guilty of any other crime committed, that being murder by the other in pursuance of a common purpose ... to commit conspiracy to possess four hundred grams or more of cocaine, or as a natural or probable consequence thereof. Members of the Jury, if you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that on or about the alleged date the Defendant acting either by himself or acting together with others, acted with malice, killed the victim with a deadly weapon, thereby proximately causing the victim’s death, and the Defendant intended to kill the victim, and that the Defendant acted after premeditation and deliberation, it would be your duty to return a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder on the basis of malice, premeditation and deliberation. Again I read to you, if you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that on or about the alleged date the Defendant acting either by himself or acting together with others committed conspiracy to possess four hundred grams or more of cocaine, and that while committing conspiracy to posses[] four hundred g”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 173 N.C. App. 187 - State v. Windley

2. “simply direct[ed the] jury to consider the primary charge first before continuing onto the lesser included offense[s]. It d[id] not mandate that the jury unanimously find the defendant not guilty with respect to first degree murder before turning to second degree murder”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. State v. Miller

3. “[i]f there are two or more offenses for which the jury could return a verdict, it may return a verdict with respect to any offense, including a lesser included offense on which the judge charged, to which it agrees.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 191 N.C. App. 253 - State v. McArthur