State v. Silva’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Your Honor, it’s very difficult to cross-examine a six-year-old child. I — I also believe that the child was being truthful, to some extent. I’m concerned about the fact that, when she was asked questions about time by the District Attorney — this is after she had testified that the incident, lasted approximately one minute — whether we can give credibility to that statement, whether it was longer or not. The facts still remains is that, she said it took one minute. First degree sexual assault is a very, very serious — very serious crime. I would assume that the State’s case is based upon the fact that this young girl was 13 — under 13 years of age. I tried to have the Court find out from the witnesses what the extent of the sexual contact was. The extent of the sexual contact was the fact that he had rubbed her buttock, not her vaginal area, and that he had his clothes on. At no time was he exposed. That evidently is substantiated by our Exhibit No. 1, which the police officer recorded by stating that he was clothed. I suppose technically this is a case of first degree sexual assault. I don’t like to say that, however, I believe it’s of such insignificant proportions as to what we generally would call a first degree sexual assault, and that is that, I don’t believe the State has proved beyond a reasonable doubt the fact that the elements have been proved. That’s the only comment I have to make at this time.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Silva, William v. Farrey, Catherine J.