Mahaffey v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The defense may offer testimony as to any specific act of violence or misconduct which evidences the violent character of the deceased under the following conditions: “If offered for the purpose of showing the reasonableness of defendant’s claim of apprehension of danger, it must further appear that the acts of violence or misconduct were known to the defendant at the time of the homicide. “But if offered for the purpose of showing that the deceased was in fact the aggressor (not that the defendant thought the deceased was making or about to make an attack) the witness must know but it need not be shown that appellant had knowledge of the acts of violence of the deceased at the time of the homicide. “Before any evidence of deceased’s character for violence becomes admissible, however, there must be evidence of some act of aggression by the deceased which the character tends to explain (such as drawing a gun or reaching for a pocket where one is usually carried).” (emphasis supplied)”

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

2. ““Applied to the facts of this ease, the question is: Did the appellant’s statement, in her confession, that the deceased hit her first, constitute evidence of an act of aggression which could be explained by the character of the deceased? To put it another way, was the deceased, at the time of the homicide, shown to be manifesting an intention to inflict violence on the appellant? “The statement that the deceased hit the appellant first, plus the evidence that they were quarrelling at the time, show sufficient violence on the part of the deceased to make the second rule applicable. The appellant was entitled to introduce the evidence to show that the deceased was the aggressor. The court’s failure to admit this testimony was prejudicial to the appellant and constitutes reversible error.””

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

3. ““In every instance where proof of threats has been made, it shall be competent to introduce evidence of the general character of the deceased.””

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