Willey v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

49 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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “for the trial court to emphasize that in order for the jury to conclude that the defendant premeditated the killing it must find that the defendant had sufficient time to consider the decision whether or not to kill and weigh the reasons for or against such a choice.”

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

2. ““It is often said that premeditation and deliberation require only a ‘brief moment of thought’ or a ‘matter of seconds,’ and convictions for first degree murder have frequently been affirmed where such short periods of time were involved. The better view, however, is that to ‘speak of premeditation and deliberation which are instantaneous, or which take no appreciable time, * * * destroys the statutory distinction between first and second degree murder,’ and (in much the same way that the felony-murder rule is being increasingly limited) this view is growing in popularity.””

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

3. “[i]f the killing results from a choice made as the result of thought, however short the struggle between the intention and the act, it is sufficient to characterize the crime as deliberate and premeditated murder.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mitchell v. State · Baker v. State