State v. Pettit’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 78 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 84 later decisions — most recently November 2025 · most notably State v. Burlison (1998), State v. Reynolds (1990)
6 federal appellate · 78 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 Morissette v. United States · United States v. United States Gypsum Co. · Holdridge v. United States · Barrett v. Commonwealth · State v. Pierce
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 84 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“To establish reversible error from a court’s refusal to give a requested instruction, an appellant has the burden to show that (1) the tendered instruction is a correct statement of the law; (2) the tendered instruction is warranted by the evidence; and (3) the appellant was prejudiced by the court’s refusal to give the tendered instruction.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““In a criminal case a court can direct a verdict only when (1) there is a complete failure of evidence to establish an essential element of the crime charged, or (2) evidence is so doubtful in character, lacking probative value, that a finding of guilt based on such evidence cannot be sustained.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“(1) A person commits manslaughter if he . . . causes the death of another unintentionally while in the commission of an unlawful act.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Sinica · State v. Davis
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.