United States v. Stevens’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

16 federal appellate · 1 district · 16 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. “"In his plight the amnesiac differs very little from an accused who was home alone, asleep in bed, at the time of the crime or from a defendant whose only witnesses die or disappear before trial. Furthermore, courts, of necessity, must decide guilt or innocence on the basis of available facts even where those facts are known to be incomplete, and the amnesiac's loss of memory differs only in degree from that experienced by every defendant, witness, attorney, judge, and venireman. How much worse off is a generally amnesiac defendant on trial for murder, for example, than one who remembers all but the dispositive fact: who struck the first blow?" * * * * * * "If a defendant is permanently amnesiac, furthermore, there will be no time in the future when the court can secure the benefit of his version of the facts. The choice facing the court would therefore be that of proceeding to adjudicate the defendant's guilt or innocence on the basis of incomplete data or abandoning the adjudicatory process altogether. Note, Amnesia: A Case Study in the Limits of Particular Justice, 71 Yale L.J. 109 , 128-29 (1961)." United States v. Stephens, 461 F.2d 317 at 320 (7th Circuit), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 948 , 93 S.Ct. 292 , 34 L.Ed.2d 218 (1972).”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 364 So. 2d 683 - Thompson v. State · State v. Lyman

2. “is in all cases an automatic bar to prosecution for a crime amply established by competent evidence on trial”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. Andrews · People v. Palmer

3. “When, after arrest and before the imposition of sentence or before the expiration of any period of probation, the attorney general, the district attorney, or the attorney for the accused has reasonable cause to believe that a person charged with an offense may be presently suffering mental disease or defect or is otherwise so mentally incompetent that he is unable to understand the proceedings against him or properly to assist in his own defense, he may file a motion for a judicial determination of the mental competency of the accused. Upon that motion or upon a similar motion in behalf of the accused, or upon its own motion, the court shall have the accused, whether or not previously admitted to bail, examined as to his mental condition by at least one qualified psychiatrist, who shall report to the court.”

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