Dawes v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[Wle examine and accept as true the State's evidence and all reasonable inferences which can be drawn from it. We do not consider conflicting evidence presented by the defendant We do not substitute our judgment for that of the jury; rather, we determine whether a jury could have reasonably concluded each of the elements of the crime was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. This standard applies whether the supporting evidence is direct or circumstantial.”

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Douglas Howard Craft v. The State of Wyoming · Ivan Lee Sweets, Sr. v. The State of Wyoming

2. “Juries legal questions, which are what usually prompt supplemental instructions, differ fundamentally from their factual questions for an obvious reason: juries do not serve as the "triers of law." They are not expected to divine the law for themselves the way they are expected to find the facts. Rather, the trial judge, aided by counsel, provides the jury with the proper legal standard. Indeed, when a jury makes explicit its legal difficulties a trial judge should clear them away with concrete accuracy. By contrast, where a jury's questions relate to a factual matter, a substantive reply (whether by the judge or the attorneys) risks interfering with the jury's exclusive responsibility for resolving factual questions. For this reason, several circuits have upheld district courts that re- ' fused to answer juries' factual questions(.]”

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

3. “(n-structions must be considered as a whole, and individual instructions, or parts of them, should not be singled out and considered in isolation.”

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