State v. Guerra’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
2 district · 127 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 129 later decisions — most recently July 2023 · most notably State v. Atwood (1992), State v. Schurz (1993)
2 district · 127 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Chapman v. State of California · Doyle v. Ohio · Ashe v. Swenson · Green v. United States · Rideout v. United States
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 129 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[p]remeditation means that the defendant acts with either the intention or the knowledge that he will kill another human being, when such intention or knowledge precedes the killing by a length of time to permit reflection. The time for reflection must be longer than the time required merely to form the intent or knowledge that conduct will cause death. However, no appreciable length of time must elapse between the formation of the intent to kill and the act; they may be as instantaneous as successive thoughts of the mind. An act is not done with premeditation if it is the instant effect of a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“a jury may be misled by an instruction placing undue emphasis on the rapidity with which premeditation can occur____ However, jury instructions must be considered as a whole— A case will not be reversed because some isolated portion of an instruction might be misleading____ Although we have problems with the “no appreciable space of time” language, we find that the remaining portions of the instructions clarified the definition of premeditation.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Eastlack“[m] ore than a scintilla and is such proof as a reasonable mind would employ to support the conclusion reached. It is of a character which would convince an unprej udiced thinking mind of the truth of the fact to which the evidence is directed. If reasonable men may fairly differ as to whether certain evidence establishes a fact in issue, then such evidence must be considered as substantial.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Salman
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.