State v. Slater’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

20 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “To establish self-defense in South Carolina, four elements must be present: (1) the defendant must be without fault in bringing on the difficulty; (2) the defendant must have been in actual imminent danger of losing his life or sustaining serious bodily injury, or he must have actually believed he was in imminent danger of losing his life or sustaining serious bodily injury; (3) if his defense is based upon his belief of imminent danger, defendant must show that a reasonably prudent person of ordinary firmness and courage would have entertained the belief that he was actually in imminent danger and that the circumstances were such as would warrant a person of ordinary prudence, firmness, and courage to strike the fatal blow in order to save himself from serious bodily harm or the loss of his life; and (4) the defendant had no other probable means of avoiding the danger.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Jackson · State v. Washington

2. “Any act of the accused in violation of law and reasonably calculated to produce the occasion amounts to bringing on the difficulty and bars his right to assert self-defense as a justification or excuse for a homicide.”

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

3. “Clarifying an ambiguity in this Court's prior case law, we noted [in Burriss ] that where the * defendant's unlawful possession of a weapon is merely incidental to the defendant's lawful act of arming himself in self-defense, the unlawful possession of the weapon will not prevent the use of an accident defense.”

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