State v. Rees’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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[I]n order to find a statement voluntary, it must first be established that it is the result of defendant’s exercise of his own free will and rational intellect. While a claim of compulsion will frequently be predicated upon police elicitation or conduct, that element is not a sine qua non for exclusion under the exclusionary rule inherent in the guarantee against self-incrimination. While proof that a defendant’s statement is spontaneous and unsolicited will often result in a finding of voluntariness, such proof does not compel a finding that the defendant was free from “compulsion of whatever nature.””

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

2. “The constitutional privilege against self-incrimination ... reflects a high priority commitment to the principle that excluded as available to government is any person’s testimonial self-condemnation of crime unless such person has acted ‘voluntarily’ i.e., unless he has “waived’ his constitutional privilege against self-incrimination by choosing, freely and knowingly, to provide criminal self-con,- demnation by utterances from, his own lips.”

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