Lyons v. Weisner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he State asserts that a position of trust must exist when a minor is left in the care of the defendant overnight. But all of the cases on which the States relies involve very different facts. For, in each of them the minor victim had a familial or other close relationship with the abuser, or was very young and so extremely dependent on the defendant, or both. ... In the case at hand . . . the victim was not an infant, not six, not nine, but fifteen-years old; moreover, he was neither related in any way to [defendant] nor did he have a particularly close relationship with [defendant].”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Blakeman

2. “[t]he North Carolina Court of Appeals in this case concluded that the facts were “sufficient” to support a finding of the aggravating factor; but that court operated under a pre-Blakely regime where the trial judge needed to find the facts supporting the aggravating factor only by a preponderance of the evidence. That holding does not affect our conclusion that we have grave doubt whether a jury could have found the facts supporting the aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Blakeman