Carmen v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[I]t is implausible to believe that the trial court did not understand that appellant was asking for a defensive instruction of deadly force in defense of one’s self since that was the only defense mentioned during voir dire, it was the only defense mentioned in appellant’s testimony, and it was the only defense appellant could have been referring to since he was charged with murder with a firearm, which is per se a deadly weapon.... [T]he situation here is an imperfectly requested defensive instruction that, under the circumstances shown in the record, could only have been interpreted to mean a request for what is informally called self-defense with a deadly weapon or deadly force, which is formally called deadly force in defense of one’s person.”

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

2. “Attorneys and judges familiar with decisions from state appellate courts understand that the shorthand term ‘self-defense’ is usually all that is needed to convey that the defendant is asserting the defense of one’s self, either with deadly force when complainant died or suffered serious bodily injury, or without deadly force when no death or serious bodily injury occurred”). . Smith, 1997 WL 94151 , at . . Our law requires that”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Gamino, Cesar Alejandro