State v. Green’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 12 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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “If the defendant did not commit the criminal act with which he is charged willingly or voluntarily, but as the result of coercion exerted on him, he is not criminally responsible. Not every form of duress of compulsion, however, relieves a defendant of responsibility for a criminal act. Coercion which will excuse the commission of a criminal act must be immediate and of such a nature as to induce in the defendant’s mind the well-grounded apprehension of death or serious bodily injury if the act is not done. There must be no reasonable opportunity for the defendant to escape the danger without committing the crime. When evidence of coercion is present, the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act under coercion. In other words, if you have a reasonable doubt whether or not the defendant acted under coercion as the court has defined it to you, your verdict must be not guilty. We note the last sentence of the instruction”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Stewart v. United States

2. ““The compulsion from the harm or evil which the actor seeks to avoid, should be present and impending, as in the case of the threat or menace contemplated by the Penal Code. This is not a case where the prisoner departed from the limits of his custody while pursued by those who would take his life because he ‘snitched,’ or by those who sought by force and violence to have him: submit-.to sodomy. Moreover, any and. all alternative courses should be. considered, and it must be determined that the threatened consequences could not .otherwise be avoided.” . . .”

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

3. “matters of common knowledge among the inmates”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Martin v. White