State v. Walters’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The defendant has been charged with impaired driving. For you to find the defendant guilty of this offense the state must prove three things beyond a reasonable doubt: First, that the defendant was driving a vehicle. Second, that the defendant was driving that vehicle upon a highway or street within the state. And third, that the defendant was driving that vehicle, (1) that the defendant was under the influence of an impairing substance. Alcohol is an impairing substance. The defendant is under the influence of an impairing substance when the defendant has consumed a sufficient quantity of that impairing substance to cause the defendant to lose the normal control of the defendant's bodily or mental faculties or both to such an extent that there is an appreciable impairment of either or both of these faculties, or (2) that the defendant had consumed sufficient alcohol that at any relevant time after driving the defendant had an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more grams of alcohol per 210 liters of breath. A relevant time is any time after driving that the driver still has in the driver's body alcohol consumed before or during driving. If the evidence tends to show that a chemical test known as an Intoxilyzer was offered to the defendant by a law enforcement officer and that the defendant refused to take the test or that the defendant refused to perform a field sobriety test at the request of an officer, you may consider this evidence together with all other evidence in deter”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 253 N.C. App. 547 - State v. Fowler

2. “a disjunctive instruction, which allows the jury to find a defendant guilty if he commits either of two underlying acts, either which is in itself a separate offense, is fatally ambiguous because it is impossible to determine whether the jury unanimously found that the defendant committed one particular offense. ... [I]f the trial court merely instructs the jury disjunctively as to various alternative acts which will establish an element of the offense, the requirement of unanimity is satisfied.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 253 N.C. App. 547 - State v. Fowler

3. “our case law has long embraced a distinction between unconstitutionally vague instructions that render unclear the offense for which the defendant is being convicted and instructions which instead permissibly state that more than one specific act can establish an element of a criminal offense.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 253 N.C. App. 574 - State v. Martinez