Robison v. Laforge’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “This instruction left it for the jury to say whether it was necessary for the appellants to use force in defending themselves, and as to the amount of force necessary for that purpose. This is not a correct statement of the law, for the jury might well have believed that the appellants were not justified in fact in using any force, or that they used more force than was actually necessary. The true test was, what was the condition at the time the assault was made; and the appellants’ right to resist force with force is dependent upon what a reasonably cautious and prudent man, situated as were the appellants, would have done under the condition then existing. If the appellants, at the time of the alleged assault upon them, as reasonably and ordinarily cautious and prudent men, honestly believed that they were in danger of great bodily harm, they would have the right to resort to self defense, and their conduct is to be judged by the condition appearing to them at the time, not by the condition as it might appear to the jury in the light of testimony before it. The appellants need not have been in actual danger of great bodily harm, but they were entitled to act on appearances; and if they believed in good faith and on reasonable grounds that they were in actual danger of great bodily harm, although it afterwards might develop that they were mistaken as to the extent of the danger, if they acted as reasonably and ordinarily cautious and prudent men would have done under the cir”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 66 Wash. 2d 273 - State v. Ladiges