State v. Weakley’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It is clear from the testimony that the killing was intentional. The defendant was therefore guilty, under the evidence, of murder in the second degree, or of manslaughter in the fourth degree,’unless the homicide was justifiable. It has been said that under our statute manslaughter in the fourth degree includes every homicide not justifiable or excusable which was manslaughter at common law, and which is not excusable or justifiable, or is not declared by statute to be manslaughter in some other degree. [State v. Edwards, 70 Mo. 480 ; Sec. 3477, R. S. 1889; State v. Watson, 95 Mo. 411 .] Therefore, ‘if the party act upon sudden passion, engendered by reasonable provocation, the existence of malice will be negatived and the killing, though intentional, will be manslaughter in the fourth degree.’ [State v. Curtis, 70 Mo. 594 .] But in order to reduce the offense from murder to manslaughter, the killing must be done in a heat of passion on a reasonable provocation, without malice and without premeditation, and under circumstances that will not be justifiable or excusable homicide. And the passion which will reduce homicide to the grade of manslaughter is an excited state of the mind produced by some lawful provocation, such as a blow, or an assault of any kind upon the person. [State v. Ellis, 74 Mo. 207 .] “It was the duty of the court to instruct the jury upon all questions of law arising in the case which were necessary for their information in giving their verdict (See. 26”

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