Wingard v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The defense of insanity must be clearly prove to the reasonable satisfaction of the jury and the burden is on the defendant to do so. Code, 1940, Title 15, § 422; Boyle v. State, 229 Ala. 212 , 154 So. 575 ; Lee v. State, Ala.Sup., 20 So.2d 471 ; Reedy v. State, Ala.Sup., 20 So.2d 528 . “There is no sanction in our law of emotional insanity as an excuse for crime. Coffey v. State, 244 Ala. 514 , 14 So.2d 122 ; Reedy v. State, supra. “We repeat the well-known rule that to sustain the defense of insanity the evidence must establish that at the time of the commission of the crime the defendant was afflicted with a diseased mind to the extent that (1) he did not know right from wrong as applied to the particular act in question, or (2) if he did have such knowledge, he, nevertheless, by reason of the duress of such mental disease had so far lost the power to select the right and to avoid doing the act in question as that his free agency was at the time destroyed, and (3) that, at the same time, the crime was so connected with such mental disease, in the relation of cause and effect, as to have been the product of it solely. Parsons v. State, 81 Ala. 577 , at pages 596, 597, 2 So. 854 , 60 Am.Rep. 193 .””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 43 Ala. App. 642 - Carr v. State · 53 Ala. App. 148 - Cordle v. State

2. “The criminal act, and the connection of the accused with it, being proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the act itself furnishes the evidence, that to its perpetration there was some cause or influence moving the mind. There is no room for speculation as to its nature or character, and it avails nothing to the defense, that of it affirmative evidence is not adduced.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 35 Ala. App. 174 - McKee v. State

3. ““ * * * Though proof of motive for the crime is not indispensable to a conviction, Wingard v. State, 247 Ala. 488 (1), 25 So.2d 170 , it is permissible testimony in aid of the State’s case. McDonald v. State, 241 Ala. 172 (9), 1 So.2d 658 .””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 39 Ala. App. 246 - Powell v. State