State v. Provost’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 39 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. “If the past history includes a clinical record wherein psychiatric opinions appear * * *, it may be that such evidence would be admissible * * * to explain `the whole man' as he was before the events of the crime and before the miasma of after-the-crime rationalizations.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. State v. Griese · State v. Persitz

2. “[P]sychiatric opinion testimony [is not] admissible on the ultimate question of whether in fact the defendant had the requisite mens rea when he committed the crime. Because mens rea is a legal construct, a medical opinion is being improperly elicited on a mixed question of law and fact. We do not, for example, allow expert opinion testimony on the ultimate question of whether a rape victim had rape trauma syndrome, State v. Saldana, 324 N.W.2d 227 (Minn.1982), nor on whether a battered woman in fact suffered from the battered woman syndrome, State v. Hennum, 441 N.W.2d 793, 799-80 (Minn.1989). Equally important, any probative value of such opinion testimony is substantially outweighed by the confusion and prejudice engendered by the “semantic jousting” of the experts. * * * In our view, psychiatric opinion testimony is not helpful on whether a person capable of forming a specific intent did in fact formulate that intent. Though a subjective state of mind may at times be difficult to determine, there is no mystery to mens rea, the latinism notwithstanding. Jurors in their every day lives constantly make judgments on whether the conduct of others was intentional or accidental, premeditated or not. Thus, to do something intentionally is to do it with the purpose of accomplishing that something. Minn.Stat. § 609.02, subd. 9 (1990). To set a person on fire with the purpose of ending that person’s life is to torch with intent to kill. The psychiatrist may look at what the defendan”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. State v. Chambers · State v. Balderama

3. “[T]o conclude that psychiatric testimony may have some relevance to a guilty mind is only the beginning, not the end, of any inquiry into admissibility of that testimony.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Bird · State v. Balderama