State v. McAvoy’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
120 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 120 later decisions — most recently August 2019 · most notably State v. Lee (1994), State v. Abraham (1994)
120 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on State v. Smith · State v. Powell · State v. Earnhardt · State v. Vause · State v. Morgan
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 120 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) it appeared to defendant and he believed it to be necessary to kill the deceased in order to save himself from death or great bodily harm; and (2) defendant’s belief was reasonable in that the circumstances as they appeared to him at that time were sufficient to create such a belief in the mind of a person of ordinary firmness; and (3) defendant was not the aggressor in bringing on the affray, i.e., he did not aggressively and willingly enter into the fight without legal excuse or provocation; and (4) defendant did not use excessive force, i.e., did not use more force than was necessary or reasonably appeared to him to be necessary under the circumstances to protect himself from death or great bodily harm.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage“[B]efore the defendant is entitled to an instruction on self-defense, two questions must be answered in the affirmative: (1) Is there evidence that the defendant in fact formed a belief that it was necessary to kill his adversary in order to protect himself from death or great bodily harm, and (2) if so, was that belief reasonable? If both queries are answered in the affirmative, then an instruction on self-defense must be given. If, however, the evidence requires a negative response to either question, a self-defense instruction should not be given.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Lyons · State v. Reid““Substantial evidence is ‘such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.’ State v. Smith, 300 N.C. 71, 78-79 , 265 S.E.2d 164, 169 (1980). The term ‘substantial evidence’ simply means ‘that the evidence must be existing and real, not just seeming or imaginary.’ State v. Powell, 299 N.C. 95 , 99 261 S.E.2d 114, 117 (1980).””
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Watson · State v. Wilson
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.