42 Ala. App. 511 - Johnson v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

40 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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ ‘Though refusal of this charge [8] was not reversible error in Morgan v. State, 20 Ala.App. 331 , 102 So. 236 (Charge E), it has been approved in Wilson v. State, 243 Ala. 1 , 8 So.2d 422 (Charge 51) and Bryant v. State, 116 Ala. 445 , 23 So. 40 . Perhaps the factor that so little of the State’s case derives from circumstantial evidence makes refusal of this charge harmless.’ (bracketed material added).””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Brown v. State · 46 Ala. App. 497 - Harris v. State

2. “"The Court instructs the jury that a person charged with a felony should not be convicted, unless the evidence excludes to a moral certainty every reasonable hypothesis but that of his guilt; no matter how strong the circumstances are they do not come up to the full measure of proof which the law requires if they can be reasonably reconciled with the theory that the Defendant is innocent. Therefore, the Court further instructs the jury that if after considering the evidence in this case unless you are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the evidence excludes to a moral certainty every reasonable hypothesis but that of the guilt of Wayne Cameron Hurst then you should return a verdict of not guilty."”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 46 Ala. App. 497 - Harris v. State · 397 So. 2d 203 - Hurst v. State

3. ““ ‘Now, Gentlemen, as to intent, I want to explain that further to you. An intent to kill is not a necessary element of murder in the second degree. It is sufficient if the accused person voluntarily set in motion or applied an unlawful force from which death ensued, and of which death or great bodily harm was the natural and probable consequence of the act, however free that it might have been from the actual purpose to kill. If the person voluntarily set in motion or applied an unlawful force from which death ■or great bodily harm was the natural and probable consequence, then you have the intent if he intended to do that. He did not have to actually intend to kill. He must have intended to do the act from which death resulted and of which death or great bodily harm was the natural and probable consequence. Here the intent we refer to is the intent to fire the pistol.’ “Here the trial judge charged not of •common law murder but as to the two statutory degrees. Having done so, he then picked up the quoted portion with respect to intent. “Simpson v. State, 59 Ala. 1 , points out that the statutory crime of assault with intent to murder not containing any definition of the word ‘murder’ therein used must and does refer to murder as it was known at common law before the statutory division of murder into two degrees. '“At common law the crime of murder was variously stated as the killing of a human being with malice aforethought, he dying within a year and a day of the act. “Eve”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 44 Ala. App. 667 - Whitworth v. State