Riggins v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““There is a difference between facts being in such a juxtaposition to warrant an inference of guilt and facts being in such a juxtaposition as to be equivalent to direct testimony. The former, no matter how strong they are or how certain is the guilt of the accused, cannot justify a failure to charge on circumstantial evidence. The latter set of facts will occur only where the evidence is such that it is logically and practically the virtual same thing as direct evidence of the factum probandum.””

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hankins v. State · Richardson v. State

2. “It was written in Riggins : “It would be difficult to imagine that a jury would reach a different result under the facts of this case with or without a charge on circumstantial evidence.””

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