State v. Britt’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 federal appellate · 24 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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, a reasonable doubt is not a vain, imaginary or fanciful doubt, but is a sane and rational doubt. It is a doubt based on common sense. When it is said that you, the jury, must be satisfied of the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, it is meant that you must be fully satisfied or entirely convinced or satisfied to a moral certainty of the truth of the charge. “I instruct you, members of the jury, that the burden of proof in this case is upon the State of North Carolina from the beginning to the close of the case. The burden of proof in the sense of ultimately proving or establishing the issue is upon the State, and it rests upon the State throughout the trial and the burden of proof never shifts. The defendant, who has not the burden of proof, is not bound to disprove the State’s case, for the State must fail if, upon the whole evidence, the State fails to satisfy you, the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of every element of the offense charged against him in the bill of indictment.””

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