State v. DeCiantis’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 4 district · 27 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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The state’s witness Louis Schiappa testified that on December 4, 1981, he observed two other men force the victim into a car driven by Anthony DeCiantis. The witness stated that he had seen DeCiantis drive the car on prior occasions, and he identified the first two letters on the license plate. These two letters were identical to those on the registration of a car owned by defendant’s sister. The next day Dennis Roche’s body was discovered in a dump in Providence. According to Deputy Medical Examiner Arthur Burns, Roche had died from a gunshot wound to the “trunk.” Roche had suffered a second gunshot wound, several stab wounds, and injuries to the face and head consistent with his having been run over by a car. The state offered three additional witnesses, each of whom testified about separate occasions on which defendant had admitted to killing Roche. Louis Campagnone testified that approximately two months after Roche’s murder, he and defendant were in a restaurant when DeCiantis admitted to having killed Roche, claiming that he did it because he believed Roche to have been responsible for the disappearance of De-Ciantis’ brother, Rocco. Robert Livingston testified that during the summer of 1982, he and defendant had a conversation in which “Anthony DeCiantis told me that he and Ricky Silva had killed Dennis Roche.... He said that Ricky had shot him and he had stabbed him.” Livingston also testified that Rocco DeCiantis’s disappearance had motivated the killing.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. DeCiantis v. Wall

2. ““[t]he trial justice is better able to assess the degree of prejudice created and the effectiveness of prompt curative instructions aimed at purging the potentially prejudicial statement from the jurors’ minds. State v. Hoyle, 122 R.I. 45 , 404 A.2d 69 (1979); State v. Freitas, 121 R.I. 412 , 399 A.2d 1217 (1979). The attendant facts and circumstances of each case must be carefully evaluated; whether the trial justice exercised proper discretion is an assessment that does not lend itself to any fixed formula.””

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

3. ““Instructions. — At the close of the evidence or at such earlier time during the trial as the court reasonably directs, any party may file written requests that the court instruct the jury on the law as set forth in the request. * * * No party may assign as error any portion of the charge or omission therefrom unless the party objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict, stating distinctly the matter to which the party objects and the grounds of the party’s objection.” (Emphasis added.).”

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