People v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
70 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 70 later decisions — most recently July 2015 · most notably 32 Cal. 3d 307 - People v. Wickersham (1982), 22 Cal. 3d 318 - People v. Wetmore (1978)
70 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 Chapman v. State of California · Griffin v. California · Harrington v. California · Fahy v. Connecticut · Time, Inc. v. Bon Air Hotel, Inc.
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 70 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The first paragraph of the instruction, standing alone, would require the jury to find a defendant conscious, if they were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he acted as if he were conscious. Thus, the jury would be precluded from finding a defendant unconscious in a case where his overt acts were those of a conscious person and regardless of any expert testimony or other evidence of unconsciousness. The second paragraph of the instruction, however, properly concludes that `... if the evidence raises a reasonable doubt that he was in fact conscious, you should find [that] he was unconscious.' Although the second paragraph is somewhat saving, we nevertheless agree with the court in Williams, at page 55, that the first paragraph is misleading and that the total instruction is confusing at the very least.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. People v. Cruz“If the evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that at the time of the commission of the alleged offense the defendant acted as if he was conscious, you should find that he was conscious. [¶] However, if, notwithstanding the defendant's appearance of consciousness, the evidence raises a reasonable doubt whether he was in fact conscious, you should find that he was then unconscious.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. People v. Cruz“as a breakdown in legal representation which substantially reduced the strength of defendant's claim of totally diminished capacity. This can be equated with the frequently reiterated concept of `withdrawing a crucial defense.' [Citation omitted.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.