State v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

206 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 206 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(1) determining whether the appellate court can or should review the issue, i.e., whether there is a lack of appellate jurisdiction or a failure to preserve the issue for appeal; (2) considering the merits of the claim to determine whether error occurred below; and (3) assessing whether the error requires reversal, i.e., whether the error can be deemed harmless.”

   9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. State v. Charles · State v. Briseno

2. “'The standard for the reversibility inquiry depends on whether the instruction was properly requested in district court. . . . If the instruction was not requested, this court applies a clear error standard to the reversibility inquiry. "Under that standard, an appellate court assesses whether it is 'firmly convinced that the jury would have reached a different verdict had the instruction error not occurred.'”

   7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. State v. King · State v. Breeden

3. “No party may assign as error the giving or failure to give an instruction . . . unless the party objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict . . . unless the instruction or the failure to give an instruction is clearly erroneous.”

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. State v. Pfannenstiel · State v. Jones