Ewing v. Lamphere’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. ““We held in the case of Hintz v. Railroad Co., 132 Mich. 305 ( 93 N. W. 634 ), that it was the duty'of this court to review the evidence in a cause to determine whether a ruling upon a motion for new trial upon the ground that the verdict was contrary to the weight of evidence was erroneous. We cannot escape this responsibility, which was doubtless imposed by the legislature to provide relief against palpable miscarriages of justice through unjust verdicts, which all judges and lawyers know to be not uncommon. In the exercise of this power this court cannot content itself with a mere determination that there is a conflict of evidence, and that the jury is as well qualified to judge of the facts and the credibility of testimony as itself, which was the rule before, or that the trial judge has approved the verdict or even expressed his own belief that the verdict is not against the weight of evidence, and thereupon affirm the denial of a motion, but it must examine the testimony and determine for itself whether or not the verdict is so plainly against justice as to call for a new trial.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Spencer