State v. Walker’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

18 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Sudden heat of passion aroused by sufficient legal provocation which may reduce a felonious killing from that of murder to that of manslaughter need not dethrone reason entirely or shut out knowledge and volition, but it refers to an unlawful killing provoked by such circumstances that would naturally disturb the sway of reason and render the mind of an ordinary, reasonable, and prudent person incapable of cool reflection. And to produce what, according to human experience may be called an uncontrollable impulse to do violence. Now in order for a felonious killing to be reduced from that of murder to that of manslaughter it must have occurred in sudden heat of passion aroused by sufficient legal provocation. The killing of a human being, even in the heat of passion, is murder if there was no sufficient legal provocation. That is the slayer had no reasonable cause for his anger. Now in connection with what I have just instructed you regarding a cool reflection, that is whether or not a reasonable time for cooling off had elapsed, you should consider the whole circumstances surrounding the event. You should consider the nature of the provocation, should you find some to exist, the defendant's mental and physical constitution as well as the circumstances and relationships between the parties, the time in which an ordinary person under like circumstances would have called—cooled off is considered to be the reasonable time. Even when a person's passion were sufficiently aroused by”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Hughey · Cook v. State

2. “Voluntary manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being in sudden heat of passion upon sufficient legal provocation.”

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