41 Va. App. 250 - Kelly v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

190 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 190 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “This familiar standard gives full play to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts.”

   16 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 49 Va. App. 389 - Neel v. Commonwealth · 46 Va. App. 234 - Stevens v. Commonwealth

2. “`discard the evidence of the accused in conflict with that of the Commonwealth, and regard as true all the credible evidence favorable to the Commonwealth and all fair inferences that may be drawn therefrom.'”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 46 Va. App. 234 - Stevens v. Commonwealth · 44 Va. App. 122 - Stevens v. Commonwealth

3. “It suffices to say that if the proof relied upon by the Commonwealth is wholly circumstantial, as it here is, then to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt all necessary circumstances proved must be consistent with guilt and inconsistent with innocence. They must overcome the presumption of innocence and exclude all reasonable conclusions inconsistent with that of guilt. To accomplish that, the chain of necessary circumstances must be unbroken and the evidence as a whole must satisfy the guarded judgment that both the corpus delicti and the criminal agency of the accused have been proved to the exclusion of any other rational hypothesis and to a moral certainty. Yet what inferences are to be drawn from proved facts is within the province of the [fact finder] and not the court so long as the inferences are reasonable and justified.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 52 Va. App. 800 - Brannon v. Commonwealth