State v. Davlin’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

75 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 75 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Tamara Ligenza, also known as Tamara Martin, was found dead in her Lincoln apartment after a fire on September 7, 1993. Ligenza was legally blind and was 6 months pregnant at the time of her death. Ligenza had been living with Davlin, but on September 6, Ligenza told Davlin to leave the apartment. . . . Davlin remained at or near the apartment building on September 6 and into the morning of September 7. Ligenza was last seen alive, by her roommate, at about 1 a.m. on September 7, 1993. Ligenza lived in a house that had been converted to a duplex with one entrance that led to both apartments. Witnesses who lived in the building testified that they were awakened at approximately 4:30 a.m. by reports of a fire in the building. Davlin was identified as being in the duplex at the time of the fire, staying in the other apartment. Firefighters removed a severely burned body from the bedroom of Ligenza’s apartment; the body was later identified by dental records as Ligenza’s. An autopsy was performed, and the coroner’s physician concluded that Ligenza had been killed by manual strangulation prior to the fire.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Davlin · State v. Davlin

2. ““ ‘[I]t is the duty of the trial court, without any request to do so, to instmct the jury on the issues presented by the pleadings and supported by the evidence. . . . “ ‘In applying that principle we have established that the failure to object to instructions after they have been submitted to counsel for review or to offer more specific instructions if counsel feels the court-tendered instructions are not sufficiently specific will preclude raising an objection on appeal, unless there is a plain error indicative of a probable miscarriage of justice.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Mowell

3. “[m]any inferences may be drawn from a missing piece of evidence; however, emphasis on one possible inference, corn- municated to the jury as part of the court’s binding jury instructions, creates the danger that the jury may give that inference undue weight. At the very least, a trial judge’s jury instruction may have the effect of overemphasizing just one of the many proper inferences that a jury may draw. Absent a showing of bad faith on the part of the State, such emphasis is unwarranted.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Engesser