Brattain v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

56 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 56 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““When the defense of insanity is interposed in a criminal case by a proper plea, the burden rests upon the State to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was sane at the time of the commission of the acts alleged as constituting the crime. This burden never shifts from the State. Every person is presumed to be sane and this presumption is sufficient to constitute a prima facie case in favor of the State where there is no evidence to dispute it and for this reason the State is not required to introduce evidence in chief to prove the sanity of the defendant. How ever, where there is some evidence introduced upon the issue of the defendant’s sanity and the jury is called upon to consider such evidence for the purpose of determining his guilt or innocence, it must find that the State has sustained the burden which the law imposes and that the evidence in the case establishes the sanity of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. Such reasonable doubt as to a defendant’s sanity may arise from evidence introduced by the State as well as from that introduced by the defendant.””

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

2. ““This instruction was properly refused in this particular case. It is true that evidence of intoxication is competent in a prosecution for any crime in which a specific intent is an essential ingredient of the offense, and when the degree of intoxication is such as to render a person incapable of entertaining a specific intent it is an effective defense as to such crimes. Booker v. State (1901), 156 Ind. 435 , 60 N. E. 156 , 54 L. R. A. 391; Aszman v. State, supra. [ 123 Ind. 347 , 24 N. E. 123 , 8 L. R. A. 33.] But it must be remembered that the offense charged herein includes the lesser offense of manslaughter, - where no specific intent is required in order to support a finding of guilty. Gillett on Criminal Law (2nd Ed.), §499. This being the law, the jury would not have been warranted in acquitting the defendant on the sole ground that he was so intoxicated as to be incapable of forming a specific intent.””

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

3. ““It was unnecessary to establish a motive for the killing, where the criminal act causing death was otherwise fully established.””

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