Faulkner v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 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 1 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The problem arises from how the proof — -the totality of the circumstances — is treated. And it arises typically in cases such as this where an accused is interrupted in his activity, usually by police responding to some form of alarm, before he has had time to fully manifest his underlying intent, whatever it may be. As a problem in syllogistic reasoning there certainly remains a gap in attempting to conclude from the evidence of the activity present the specific intent held in the mind of the accused. That problem has been preyiously noted by our courts. See, e.g., Crawford v. State (1968), 251 Ind. 437 , 241 N.E.2d 795 (Arterburn, J. and Lewis, C.J. dissenting). Yet it appears to me that this problem is peculiarly subject to Mr. Justice Holmes’ oft-quoted classic admonition that “the life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” Thus, common human experience tells us that when a person (a) breaks and enters a dwelling or other building where valuables are kept, or might reasonably be expected to be kept; (b) he does so when the regular occupants are away or expected to be away and at a time or in a manner that his entry is likely to be undetected by passersby; and (c) he does so in the absence of circumstances tending to negate a felonious intent or, indeed, demonstrating an intent to commit a different felony, there exists a reasonable inference that the person entered with the intent to commit a theft. I believe that was the essence of the court’s analysis”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Desloover v. State