Parks v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “if the state relies upon circumstantial evidence, that evidence must be so strong as to exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused. It must be inconsistent with his innocence. This court has ruled on several occasions that, in cases involving life or liberty, this rule must not be relaxed. When a heinous crime has been committed in a community, and the peo pie are greatly shocked thereby, it is natural for them to catch at any little circumstance to throw suspicion upon some person, and to conclude from this or that circumstance that he is the guilty party. The horror of the crime, and their desire, as good citizens, to see the guilty party punished and the law vindicated, frequently lead them to premature judgment, which oftentimes follows them into the jury box, where, as jurymen, they not infrequently find persons guilty on bare suspicion alone.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Wilcox v. Ford