State v. Sikora’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate · 2 district · 41 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 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Criminal responsibility must be judged at the level of the conscious. If a person thinks, plans and executes the plan at that level, the criminality of his act cannot be denied, wholly or partially, because, although he did not realize it, his conscious was influenced to think, to plan and to execute the plan by unconscious influences which were the product of his genes and his lifelong environment.”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Pohlot · State v. Caddell

2. “The judiciary cannot bar evidence which rationally bears upon the factual inquiry the legislature has ordered. The capacity of an individual to premeditate, to deliberate, or to will to execute a homicidal design or any deficiency in that capacity, may bear upon the question whether he in fact did so act. Hence evidence of any defect, deficiency, trait, condition, or illness which rationally bears upon the question whether those mental operations did in fact occur must be accepted. Such evidence could be excluded only upon the thesis that it is too unreliable for the courtroom....”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Galloway

3. “Under the M'Naghten concept, from which New Jersey has declined to depart ( State v. Lucas, 30 N.J. 37, 72 , 152 A. 2d 50 (1959)), he who has the mental capacity to know the difference between right and wrong is legally responsible for his criminal conduct.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Winder