State v. Ridgely’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The facts in this case are similar in many respects to the facts in the case of State v. Epes, 209 S.C. 246 , 39 S.E.2d 769 (1946). In that case the accused reported to the police the disappearance of his wife and pretended to aid in search of her. Later he admitted that he had concealed her body and led the police to an improvised grave. It was his contention that his wife took an overdose of medicine and died as a result of it. In that case, as here, the law of circumstantial evidence was largely relied upon by the State. Referring to concealment of the body of a murdered person, this court said: The general rule is that the concealment or the attempted destruction of a body of a person murdered is regarded as an incriminating circumstance and will be given probative force in connection with other facts. See Annotation, 2 A.L.R. 1227 , and the numerous cases there cited to sustain this proposition; and also, Wigmore on Evidence, 2d Ed., Secs. 32,172, 267, 272 and 276. The action of the appellant in concealing the body of his wife so as to divert suspicion from himself was a relevant circumstance tending to show guilt, and it was for the jury to estimate its weight, and it was for the jury to determine whether his explanation and the motive he assigned were truthful or otherwise. 39 S.E.2d at 777 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Al-Amin