State v. Sawyer’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

97 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 97 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The defendant assumes, nonetheless, that when lesser included offenses are involved, a middle ground, compromise position always waits in the wings and may be turned to by the jury at any time that it is unable to agree on a verdict on the charged offense. That assumption carries with it the further assumption that at some point, the offense that the state has elected to prosecute may simply be bypassed and left in limbo without any resolution by way of a verdict. We are unaware of any authority in this state for that proposition. ‘Although the jury may initially be instructed concerning lesser included offenses, and may eventually turn to these lesser included offenses to reach a verdict, it should not be given an instruction that could encourage it to give the charged offense short shrift and to turn to lesser included offenses in order to reach a compromise verdict virtually at the outset of its deliberations. Only after it has confronted and unanimously completed the difficult task of deciding the guilt or innocence of the accused as to the charged offense should the jury consider lesser included offenses. Anything less dilutes the right of the state and the defendant to have the jury give its undivided attention and most serious deliberations to the offense with which the defendant is charged and flies in the face of the unanimity requirement. ...””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Lewis · State v. Daulton

2. “[I]t is the duty of the jury not to reach compromise verdicts based on sympathy for the defendant or to appease holdouts, but to render a just verdict by applying the facts it finds to the law it is charged.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Lewis · State v. Daulton

3. ““The jury instruction to be given at the conclusion of a trial, however, is a question of law that cannot be resolved by deference to the wish of the defendant or by a sporting theory of justice.... A criminal trial is not a game of chance. Allowing the defendant to choose the transitional instruction and to gamble on its consequences slights the desirable goals of thorough deliberations and finality and neglects the state’s interest in the resolution of the charges on which it presented the defendant.... Such an approach to transitional instructions is dictated more by expediency than by a commitment that justice be done to both the state and the defendant, and that the charges brought be thoroughly deliberated, considered and disposed of definitively. See Uniform Rules of Criminal Procedure 535(b), comments, 10 U.L.A. 281-82 (1974) (unanimity requirement leads to more thorough consideration of issues and more careful deliberation).””

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