State v. Cope’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Nevertheless, in the present case, the DNA evidence on Child’s body, along with Cope’s admissions about his interactions with Child shortly before she died, place Cope and Sanders together at the time of the assault on Child and her resulting death. Likewise, the testimony regarding lack of forced entry and the cluttered condition of the home constitute evidence that Sanders, who had no known connection with Cope’s family, received assistance to navigate his way to Child’s bedroom. Finally, Cope’s staging of the crime scene after Child died is evidence that a cover-up had begun before Cope called the police to his home on the pretext that Child had accidentally strangled herself, notwithstanding compelling forensic evidence that Sanders was present and actively participating during the same time period in which her death was determined to have occurred. Although each of these factors alone may have supported only a mere suspicion of a conspiracy between Cope and Sanders, it is our view that when considered together, they yield the requisite level of proof of “acts, declarations, or specific conduct” by the alleged conspirators to withstand a directed verdict motion on this charge. See State v. Hernandez, 382 S.C. 620, 625 , 677 S.E.2d 603, 605 (2009) (reversing a conviction for trafficking and noting “the State failed to present any evidence such as acts, declarations, or specific conduct to support [an] inference” that the petitioners had knowledge that drugs were being tran”

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

2. “[T]he evidence offered by accused as to the commission of the crime by another person must be limited to such facts as are inconsistent with his own guilt, and to such facts as raise a reasonable inference or presumption as to his own innocence; evidence which can have (no) other effect than to cast a bare suspicion upon another, or to raise a conjectural inference as to the commission of the crime by another, is not admissible____ But before such testimony can be received, there must be such proof of connection with it, such a train of facts or circumstances, as tends clearly to point out such other person as the guilty party. Remote acts, disconnected and outside the crime itself, cannot be separately proved for such a purpose.”

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