Dobson v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
2000
Citation profile
24
cited by 24 later decisions
1
states following
January 2017
most recently cited
24 state decisions
Relationships
Relies on In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Sandstrom v. Montana · Mullaney v. Wilbur · County Court of Ulster Cty. v. Allen · Francis v. Franklin
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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[a] mandatory presumption instructs the jury that it must infer the presumed fact if the State proves certain predicate facts. A permissive inference suggests to the jury a possible conclusion to be drawn if the State proves the predicate facts, but does not require the jury to draw that conclusion.... Mandatory presumptions ... violate the Due Process Clause if they relieve the State of the burden of persuasion on an element of an offense.... A permissive inference does not relieve the State of its burden of persuasion because it still requires the State to convince the jury that the suggested conclusion should be inferred based on the predicate facts proved.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he challenged instruction in the present case ... informed the jury that it "may" reasonably draw an inference from certain facts, if proved, provided that the defendant did not reasonably or satisfactorily explain his possession of the recently stolen property. Thus, the challenged Instruction here created only a permissive inference that the jury was free to reject, irrespective of whether the defendant offered a reasonable explanation consistent with his innocence. The jury was not required to draw any conclusion from the facts proved by the Commonwealth in the absence of such contrary evidence from the defendant.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“a procedural device that shifts to a defendant the burden of producing some evidence contesting a fact that may otherwise be inferred, provided that the prosecution retains the ultimate burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.