Sears v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[t]he jury's conclusion that [Appellant] acted with malice thus necessarily means that it would have rejected any accident defense, which is premised on the claim that he acted without any criminal intent.”

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

2. “Here, the jury was properly and fully instructed that the State had the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that [Appellant] acted with the requisite malicious intent to commit each of the crimes charged,”

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

3. “A person shall not be found guilty of any crime committed by misfortune or accident where it satisfactorily appears there was no criminal scheme or undertaking, intention, or criminal negligence.”

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