State v. Berger’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

30 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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We think, that in all cases of this nature, the law has invested Courts of justice with the authority to discharge a jury from giving any verdict, whenever, in their opinion, taking all the circumstances into consideration, there is a manifest necessity for the act, or the ends of public justice would otherwise be defeated. They are to exercise a sound discretion on the subject; and it is impossible to define all the circumstances, which would render it proper to interfere. To be sure, the power ought to be used with the greatest caution, under urgent circumstances, and for very plain and obvious causes; and, in capital eases especially, Courts should be extremely careful how they interfere with any of the chances of life, in favor of the prisoner. But, after all, they have the right to order the discharge; and the security which the public have for the faithful, sound, and conscientious exercise of this discretion, rests, in this, as in other cases, upon the responsibility of the Judges, under their oaths of office.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Day v. Haskell · State v. Linghor

2. “`a proceeding under the juvenile system which has reached final disposition constitutes jeopardy'”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Interest of Lbb · In Re Bf

3. “A conviction rests upon insufficient evidence when, even after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution and giving the prosecution the benefit of all inferences reasonably to be drawn in its favor, no rational factfinder could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. When a court, be it an appellate court or a trial court on motion for entry of a judgment of acquittal, concludes that evidence is legally insufficient to support a guilty verdict, it concludes that the prosecution has failed to produce sufficient evidence to prove its case. The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution bars retrial in such a case. On the other hand, when a court is asked to consider whether or not a conviction is against the weight of the evidence, the court must evaluate for itself the credibility of the evidence. Id. If the trial court concludes that, despite the abstract sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict, the evidence preponderates sufficiently heavily against the verdict that a serious miscarriage of justice may have occurred, it may set aside the verdict, grant a new trial, and submit the issues for determination by another jury. Therefore, while in challenges based on the weight of the evidence a trial court acts as a "thirteenth juror" and independently assigns value to and weighs evidence, in challenges based on the sufficiency of the evidence the court asks only if the prosecution's case ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Interest of Lbb