State v. Buchanan’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 36 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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““INSTRUCTION No. 18 “Evidence has been introduced on the subject of defendant’s intoxication. The law provides that no amount of voluntary intoxication can entirely excuse a homicide and thereby entitle a slayer to an acquittal. “You may consider this evidence, however, along with all the other evidence in the case, in determining whether or not the State has established beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant acted upon the occasion charged willfully, deliberately and premeditatedly in connection with the charge of murder in the first degree. “In the event you find the defendant not guilty of murder in the first degree and are deliberating upon the guilt or innocence of the defendant under the charge of murder in the second degree you may consider this evidence, along with all the other evidence in the case, in determining whether or not the State has established beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant acted upon the occasion charged with malice aforethought. “In the event you find the defendant not guilty of murder in the first degree and not guilty of murder in the second degree and are deliberating upon the guilt or innocence of the defendant under the included charge of manslaughter, this evidence is not to be considered by you in connection therewith.””

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

2. “when a defendant urges a defense of voluntary intoxication which is supported by substantial evidence, such evidence is to be considered by the jury on the material issue in the State’s case upon which it bears in determining whether the State has met its burden to prove the element involved beyond a reasonable doubt. This does not mean the State must prove as an additional element that the defendant was not prevented from forming specific intent by reason of intoxication; it means only that the burden of proving specific intent does not leave the State even when the defendant relies on an intoxication defense. The distinction between the burden of producing evidence and the burden of persuasion is involved here. See 9 Wigmore on Evidence §§ 2485-2489 (3d ed. 1940). The defendant retains the obligation to raise a fact question for the jury on the intoxication issue regardless of the source of the evidence, but when such evidence is adduced the risk of nonpersuasion on the affected element remains with the State.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hinkle v. Scurr

3. “As to all these claims for exoneration [self-defense, duress, insanity, intoxication], their truth goes in final analysis to the guilt, to the rightness of punishing, the accused. Thus it seems inconsistent to demand as to some elements of guilt, such as an act of killing, that the jury be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, and as to others, such as duress or capacity to know right from wrong, the jury may convict though they have such doubt. Accordingly, the recent trend is to treat these so-called matters of defense as situations wherein the accused will usually have the first burden of producing evidence in order that the issue be raised and submitted to the jury, but at the close of the evidence the jury must be told that if they have a reasonable doubt of the element thus raised they must acquit.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Rose