Seely v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Defendant complains in his brief that in his argument to the jury the prosecutor went outside the record in such a.manner as to arouse the passions of the jurors, which thereby prejudiced his trial. In the same connection, we observe that the prosecutor stated in his cross-examination of defendant, “Don’t you know, as a matter of fact, that where a person drinks wine to the extent that they’re under the influence of the liquor that every [time] they take a drink of water that it brings the whole thing back again?” It appears that the prosecutor was subtly offering testimony concerning what effect champagne had upon a person. This appears especially pertinent insofar as the prosecutor stated the question in a manner, as being a “matter of fact.” In his closing argument the prosecutor argued further, “Now there’s no testimony here as to the potency of champagne and personally, I’m thankful that I don’t know except what I’ve been told * * But I do know this, and this was brought out in this evidence this morning, that where a person imbibes sufficient wine, champagne or what not, to become under the influence of it, that is a lasting effect, that every time you take a drink of water it brings on an acceleration of a condition.” Our research fails to verify the prosecutor’s contention concerning either the potency of champagne, or his statement with relation to the subsequent drinking of water bringing on an acceleration of intoxicated condition. In fact, the opposite of both sta”

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