Ashcraft v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

16 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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The proper practice is for the court to hear the testimony in the absence of the jury as to the circumstances under which the confession was given, and if there is a substantial question as to whether it was freely and voluntarily made, to submit that question of fact to the jury, after admonishing the jury to disregard the confession unless it was found to have been voluntarily made. So here, the court in chambers, in the absence of the jury, heard many witnesses, both on the part of the State and of the defendant as to the circumstances under which the confession was made and this testimony being in irreconciliable conflict as to whether the confession was voluntarily made, that question was submitted to the jury under proper instructions directing them to disregard the confession and not to consider it for any reason unless they found that it was freely and voluntarily made. We hold, therefore, that there was no error in admitting appellant’s confession in evidence. See Morton and Ashcraft v. State, supra, and Smith v. State, 205 Ark. 1075 , 172 S. W. 2d 248 ; Hendrix v. State, 200 Ark. 973 , 141 S. W. 2d 852 ; Burton v. State, 204 Ark. 548 , 163 S. W. 2d 160 ; Nelson v. State, 190 Ark. 1078 , 83 S. W. 2d 539 ; and Davis v. State, 182 Ark. 123 , 30 S.W. 2d 830 .””

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