Turner v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In so far as the victim’s fear is concerned, it is immaterial as to whether that fear was induced by the display of a toy pistol thought by the victim to be real, or the pointing by the robber in his coat pocket of his finger or hand so as to make the victim believe the bulge to be a pistol which the robber intended to use in the event of the victim’s resistance. In either instance, the robber is equally as guilty. He accomplished the taking by putting his victim in fear. “Therefore, if the Court accepts the State’s suggestion as to the legislative intent and alleged resulting legal implication, then, by the same token, it would follow that the Court must hold that such use of such finger or hand in such pocket so as to simulate the possession and threat to use a pistol brings it about that the robbery was ‘accomplished by the use of a deadly weapon’ within the meaning of the 1955 statute, and, therefore, a jury’s sentence to electrocution for the use of such finger or hand must be upheld, rather than remanding the cause for the fixing of a penitentiary sentence of not less than five nor more than fifteen years, that being the punishment provided when the robbery is not ‘accomplished by the use of a deadly weapon’. As the Court views it, the contemplation of such a result strongly militates against the accuracy of. the State’s interpretation of the legislative intent in the use of the expression ‘deadly weapon’ in this 1955 amendment. “Often, an intended victim of a robbery ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 3 Tenn. Crim. App. 556 - Campbell v. State

2. ““Under this statute, it is not necessary for the indictment to charge, or the commonwealth to prove, that the pistol was loaded and in every respect capable of being used as a firearm. To so hold would render the statute a nullity, for the very obvious reason that the victim, or intended victim, of a robbery has no opportunity to examine a firearm to ascertain whether or not it is loaded. A person assaulted with a pistol has the right to assume that it is loaded and capable of producing death, and will not be required to subject himself to the danger of first endeavoring to ascertain those facts before yielding to the demands of the robber.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hemphill v. State