State v. Josephs’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

30 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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “This plainly indicates that, in § 53-247 (a), 'unjustifiably' means something different from 'intentionally' and that the legislature will include specific intent language along with the word 'unjustifiably' when it intends for a specific intent to apply.... The legislature's differing treatment of these two clauses within the same subsection convinces us that the 'unjustifiably injures any animal' clause, under which the defendant was charged, requires only a general intent.... "The defendant argues that we should read a specific intent requirement into the prohibition in § 53-247 (a) against 'unjustifiably injur[ing]' an animal because subsection (b) of § 53-247 punishes 'maliciously and intentionally' maiming, mutilating, torturing, wounding or killing an animal .... [T]here is a clear reason for an additional mens rea element in subsection (b), namely, the punishment imposed by subsection (b) is more severe than that imposed by subsection (a).... "[T]he plain and unambiguous language of the clause in § 53-247 (a) that the defendant was charged with violating required only a general intent when read in the context of the entirety of subsection (a) and within § 53-247 as a whole. Accordingly, the trial court properly concluded that the state was not required to prove that the defendant possessed the specific intent to injure Wiggles.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 182 Conn. App. 237 - State v. Hearl

2. “A statute ... [that] forbids or requires conduct in terms so vague that persons of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process.... Laws must give a person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited so that he may act accordingly.... Unless a vagueness claim implicates the first amendment right to free speech, [a] defendant whose conduct clearly comes within a statute's unmistakable core of prohibited conduct may not challenge the statute because it is vague as applied to some hypothetical situation .... In contrast, [i]n a facial vagueness challenge, we ... examine the challenged statute to see if it is impermissibly vague in all of its applications. A statute that is impermissibly vague in all its applications is vague, not in the sense that it requires a person to conform his conduct to an imprecise but comprehensible normative standard, but rather in the sense that no standard of conduct is specified at all.... Such a provision simply has no core.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 190 Conn. App. 353 - State v. Dojnia

3. “a defendant can prevail on a claim of constitutional error not preserved at trial only if all of the following conditions are met: (1) the record is adequate to review the alleged claim of error; (2) the claim is of constitutional magnitude alleging the violation of a fundamental right; (3) the alleged constitutional violation ... exists and ... deprived the defendant of a fair trial; and (4) if subject to harmless error analysis, the state has failed to demonstrate harmlessness of the alleged constitutional violation beyond a reasonable doubt. In the absence of any one of these conditions, the defendant's claim will fail.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 182 Conn. App. 237 - State v. Hearl