State v. McHugh’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “McHugh argues that the District Court erred in refusing his proposed jury instructions no. 16 and 17. McHugh’s proposed instruction no. 16 would have in effect required that the jury find he had actual knowledge that his checks would not be honored. McHugh’s proposed instruction no. 17 would have provided McHugh a defense if the jury found that McHugh had such credit with the bank as to lead him to a reasonable belief that his checks would be honored, and would allow proof of such a belief by showing an implied understanding by McHugh from his past course of dealing with the bank and the bank’s past conduct. Both proposed instructions were derived from states, unlike Montana, where criminal liability for issuing bad checks depends on an intention to defraud. We conclude that the District Court properly refused the instructions. Section 45-6-316(1), MCA does not require actual knowledge that the checks will not be paid by the bank. This section requires only that the defendant act “knowing that [the check] will not be paid by the depository.” The definition of “knowingly” and the equivalent term “knowing” is stated in section 45-2-101(33), MCA. This definition was presented to the jury in Instruction no. 9. That instruction informed the jury that “[w]here, as here, knowledge of the existence of a particular act is an element of an offense, such knowledge of the fact is established if a person is aware of a high probability of its existence.” This instruction, which was given t”

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

2. “constitute sufficient evidence by which a rational jury could find that McNeil knew or was aware that it was highly probable that his check would not be paid by the”

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

3. “acts which closely follow one another evidenc[e] a continuing criminal design.”

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