Cost v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

59 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 59 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “jury instructions must be read together, and if, taken as a whole, they correctly state the law, are not misleading, and cover adequately the issues raised by the evidence, the defendant has not been prejudiced and reversal is inappropriate.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Williams v. State · Vielot v. State

2. “The destruction of or the failure to preserve evidence by a party may give rise to an inference unfavorable to that party. If you find that the intent was to conceal the evidence, the destruction or failure to preserve must be inferred to indicate that the party believes that his or her case is weak and that he or she would not prevail if the evidence was preserved. If you find that the destruction or failure to preserve the evidence was negligent, you may, but are not required to, infer that the evidence, if preserved, would have been unfavorable to that party.”

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

3. “You have heard testimony about _, who was not called as a witness in this case. If a -witness could have given important testimony on an issue in this case and if the witness was peculiarly within the power of the [State] [defendant] to produce, but was not called as a witness by the [State] [defendant] and the absence of that witness was not sufficiently accounted for or explained, then you may decide that the testimony of that witness would have been unfavorable to the [State] [defendant],”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 200 Md. App. 563 - Pinkney v. State