McKinney v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

22 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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[bjecause the concern is ensuring that the essential elements of the offense are proven beyond a reasonable doubt, it makes little sense to preclude a defendant from challenging the legal sufficiency of the evidence on appeal simply because he requested and received an instruction on a lesser-included offense. Likewise, it makes little sense to extend the estoppel rule to preclude a defendant from challenging the factual sufficiency of the evidence. Thus, we hold that the estoppel rule will not be applied to all criminal cases where the legal sufficiency of the evidence is challenged and a lesser-included offense instruction is requested and received, nor should the rule be extended to preclude challenges to factual sufficiency. On the contrary, application of this estoppel rule should be confined exclusively to the limited number of cases that challenge the sufficiency of the evidence as it relates to the sudden-passion element of voluntary manslaughter and that arose before September 1, 199L”

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