State v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The authorities are fairly harmonious in holding that, in order for a homicide to be reduced from murder to manslaughter, there must be a sudden unexpected assault, encounter, or provocation tending to excite the passion beyond control. It is not the assault or the provocation alone that reduces the grade of the crime, but it is the sudden happening or occurrence of the provocation so as to render the mind incapable of reflection and obscure the reason so that the elements of malice and deliberation necessary to constitute murder are absent, and therefore the crime is not murder, but manslaughter. . “In the case now before us, there is abundant testimony by disinterested witnesses to the effect that deceased made numerous threats against the life of the defendant. These threats were communicated to defendant. In addition, defendant testified that deceased followed defendant on two occasions within a few days prior to the homicide and threatened to assault him. Defendant testified he armed himself with a deadly weapon for the purpose of protecting himself against the threatened assaults of deceased; that at the time of the shooting deceased advanced toward him, stating T will get you now,’, etc., and threw two rocks at defendant, and when deceased reached a point of about six feet from defendant, defendant shot to protect himself. After the shooting, defendant calmly walked by the body of the deceased and telephoned the sheriff that he had killed the deceased. Under this test”

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