State v. McKnight’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 4 district · 130 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 143 later decisions — most recently June 2015 · most notably State v. Johnson (1975), State v. Koedatich (1988)
6 federal appellate · 4 district · 130 state decisions — followed in 14 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Johnson v. Zerbst · Townsend v. Sain · Fay v. Noia · Massiah v. United States
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 143 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]t is not the mission of the Bill of Rights to protect a fool from his folly. Effective criminal detection depends in large part upon the carelessness and even stupidity of the average criminal. The Constitution does not require continuing legal education seminars for the criminal class in “How More Effectively to Cover One’s Tracks.” ... [W]e agree with former Chief Judge Joseph Weintraub of New Jersey, as he observed in State v. McKnight, 52 N.J. 35 , 243 A.2d 240, 250-51 (1968): “There is no right to escape detection. There is no right to commit a perfect crime or to an equal opportunity to that end. The Constitution is not at all offended when a guilty man stubs his toe. On the contrary, it is decent to hope that he will. Nor is it dirty business to use evidence a defendant himself may furnish in the detectional stage. Voluntary confessions accord with high moral values, and as to the culprit who reveals his guilt unwittingly with no intent to shed his inner burden, it is no more unfair to use the evidence he thereby reveals than it is to turn against him clues at the scene of the crime which a brighter, better informed, or more gifted criminal would not have left— It is consonant with good morals, and the Constitution, to exploit a criminal's ignorance or stupidity in the detectional process.””
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"Nowhere does Miranda suggest that the waiver of counsel at the detectional stage would not be 'knowing’ or 'intelligent’ if the suspect did not understand the law relating to the crime, the possible defenses, and the hazards of talking without the aid of counsel, or if the suspect was not able to protect his interests without such aid, or, in terms of the plurality opinion in Von Moltke [v. Gillies, 332 U.S. 708 , 68 S. Ct. 316 , 92 L. Ed. 309 (1948)], if it was not 'wise’ of the prisoner to forego counsel or the right to silence.... However relevant to 'waiver’ of the right to counsel at trial or in connection with a plea of guilty, those factors are foreign to the investigational scene where the detection of the guilty is the legitimate aim. Hence if a defendant was given the Miranda warnings, if the coercion of custodial interrogation was thus dissipated, his 'waiver’ was no less 'voluntary’ and 'knowing’ and 'intelligent’ because he misconceived the inculpatory thrust of the facts he admitted, or because he thought that what he said could not be used because it was only oral or because he had his fingers crossed, or because he could well have used a lawyer. A man need not have the understanding of a lawyer to waive one. Such matters, irrelevant when the defendant volunteers his confession to a friend or to a policeman passing on his beat, are equally irrelevant when the confession is made in custody after the coercion of custodial interrogation has been dispelled by the ”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“constitutional rights may be lost if they are not advanced in accordance with rules which afford a fair opportunity to press them.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.