State v. Hughey’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

71 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 71 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Hughey requested the following examples of legal provocation: pulling a knife on a defendant, pointing a gun at a defendant, spitting in a defendant's face, assault of a family member, sudden mutual combat where one of the participants is killed by the other without a previously informed intention to do so, finding one's spouse in the act of adultery, or the deceased having molested a defendant's minor child. The requested examples constitute a direct charge on the facts because Hughey alleges that a knife was pulled on him, Jackson spit in his face, and there was sudden mutual combat. The requested jury charge elevates the specific facts of the case, such as spitting in a person's face, to an acceptable act of legal provocation. Because the requested charge is an instruction on the facts, and the requested charge is fully and fairly covered by the trial judge's general charge, refusal of the requested instruction is not reversible error.”

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

2. “[T]he sudden heat of passion, upon sufficient legal provocation, which mitigates a felonious killing to manslaughter, while it need not dethrone reason entirely, or shut out knowledge and volition, must be such as would naturally disturb the sway of reason, and render the mind of an ordinary person incapable of cool reflection, and produce what, according to human experience, may be called an uncontrollable impulse to do violence.”

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

3. “Even when a person's passions were sufficiently aroused by a legally adequate provocation, if at the time of the killing those passions had cooled or a sufficiently reasonably time had elapsed so that the passions of the ordinary reasonable person would have cooled, the killing would be murder and not manslaughter.”

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