213 Ill. 2d 218 - People v. Lee’s Empirical Analysis
2004
Citation profile
200 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 207 later decisions — most recently March 2026 · most notably 232 Ill. 2d 156 - People v. Artis (2009), 237 Ill. 2d 81 - People v. Johnson (2010)
200 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on 211 Ill. 2d 368 - People v. Harvey · 203 Ill. 2d 335 - People v. Crespo · 164 Ill. 2d 104 - People v. Jeffries · 202 Ill. 2d 59 - People v. Collins · 205 Ill. 2d 411 - People v. Tenney
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 207 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Self-defense is an affirmative defense, and once a defendant raises it, the State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense, in addition to proving the elements of the charged offense. [Citation.] The elements of self-defense are: (1) that unlawful force was threatened against a person; (2) that the person threatened was not the aggressor; (3) that the danger of harm was imminent; (4) that the use of force was necessary; (5) that the person threatened actually and subjectively believed a danger existed that required the use of the force applied; and (6) the beliefs of the person threatened were objectively reasonable." Lee , 213 Ill. 2d at 224 -25 , 821 N.E.2d at 311 .”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. People v. Guja · People v. Olaska“Self-defense is an affirmative defense, and once a defendant raises it, the State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense, in addition to proving the elements of the charged offense.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Where a criminal conviction is challenged based on insufficient evidence, a reviewing court, considering all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, must determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements of the crime.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. People v. Olaska
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.