166 Ind. App. 152 - Parsons v. State’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. “[t]he reason for requiring evidence of a crime independent of a defendant's extrajudicial confession is to avoid the risk of convicting a defendant for a crime to which he confessed, but which never in fact occurred. .... A confession must include all essential elements of the crime, whereas an admission merely admits some fact which tends to connect the defendant with the alleged offense.... However, the distinction is immaterial to issues of corpus delicti since our case law applies the corpus delicti requirement to the introduction of admissions as well as confessions. Indiana case law has consistently held that a defendant's out-of-court admission or confession is not properly admitted unless there is independent proof of the corpus delicti, in that, the evidence aside from the admission or confession establishes that the specific crime charged was committed by someone.”

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

2. ““ [I] t is only when the accused is so intoxicated that he is unconscious as to what he is saying that his confession will be deemed to be involuntary and, therefore, inadmissible. Intoxication of a lesser degree goes only to the weight to be given to the statement and not its admissibility.””

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