State v. Mabery’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “When I speak of a reasonable doubt, I mean a substantial doubt as opposed to some flimsy doubt, a doubt based on reason and common sense arising out of some or all of the evidence that has been presented or lack of evidence as the case may be. It is not a vain, imaginary, or fanciful or mere possible doubt, because everything relating to human affairs is open to some possible or imaginary doubt, nor is it a doubt suggested by the ingenuity of counsel, or by your ingenuity not legitimately warranted by the evidence, nor is it a doubt born of a merciful inclination or disposition to permit the defendant to escape the penalty of the law or one prompted by sympathy for him or anyone connected with him. If, after weighing and considering all of the evidence, you are fully satisfied and entirely convinced of the defendant’s guilt, then you would be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt. On the other hand, if you do have any doubt based on reason and common sense, arising from the evidence in the case, or lack of evidence as to any facts necessary to constitute guilt and cannot say that you have an abiding faith to a moral certainty in the defendant’s guilt, then you would indeed have a reasonable doubt, and it would be your duty to give the defendant the benefit of that doubt and to find him not guilty-”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 37 N.C. App. 18 - State v. Staley

2. ““The Supreme Court of North Carolina, in a case filed on the eleventh day of April, 1973, a recent case, has attempted to again define reasonable doubt. The Court says this: The phrase reasonable doubt means just what the words imply. It is a doubt based upon reason arising from a thorough and impartial consideration of all of the evidence in the case or lack of evidence as the case may be. “This, of course, is a criminal case in which reasonable doubt is being defined. It says this: Neither should you go outside the evidence to imagine doubt to justify an acquittal. “The Court would instruct you that you shouldn’t go outside of the evidence in this case to imagine doubt to render a verdict in favor of the defendant and against the plaintiff.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 20 N.C. App. 559 - Searcy Ex Rel. Schiro v. Justice