Bright v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently April 2001
12 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 Ransom v. State · Shields v. State · Callas v. State · Waller v. Rapides Grocery Co. · Wesley v. State
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Although a majority of the Court is of the opinion that the instruction does correctly state the law, several other Judges are of the opinion that it is too long, redundant and confusing. In the future, it might be wise for district attorneys to substitute the following instruction for the one quoted above: The court instructs the jury that to make a killing justifiable on the grounds of self-defense, the danger to the defendant must be either actual, present and urgent, or the defendant must have reasonable grounds to apprehend a design on the part of the victim to kill him or to do him some great bodily harm, and in addition to this he must have reasonable grounds to apprehend that there is imminent danger of such design being accomplished. It is for the jury to determine the reasonableness of the ground upon which the defendant acts.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Robinson v. State · Lenoir v. State“(1) ... and hence, mere fear, apprehension or belief, (2) However sincerely entertained by one person, that another designs to take his life or to do him some bodily harm, will not justify the former in killing the latter. (3) A party may have apprehension that his life is in danger, and believe the grounds of his apprehension just and reasonable, and yet he acts at his peril.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Robinson v. State“The Court instructs the Jury that to make a killing justifiable on the grounds of self-defense, the danger to the defendant must be either actual, present and urgent, or the Defendant must have reasonable grounds to apprehend a design on the part of the victim to do him some great bodily harm.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Robinson v. State
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.