Stork v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In his treatise on Evidence, McCormick distinguishes between confessions and admissions and points out that an admission need not be an acknowledgment of facts which directly establish the defendant's guilt. Statements which are intended to prove innocence but which, when proven untrue, imply guilt are admissions. [An admission exists where] the mere making of the assertion (without regard to its truth) tends to prove guilt. For example, in a conspiracy trial evidence was introduced that one defendant had denied knowing the other defendants on a given date. This was an admission because the assertion, when considered with other proof which tended to show it was erroneous, indicated consciousness of guilt and therefore permitted an inference of actual guilt. McCormick, Evidence, 2d Ed., § 146, p. 310, citing Williamson v. United States, 310 F.2d 192, 199 (9th Cir.1962). Stork's conflicting versions of the cause of his wife's death follow the same pattern as the example given by McCormick. They constituted admissions because when considered together and compared with Stork's testimony at trial, they could have been interpreted by the jury as an attempt to cover up the truth and as proof of Stork's consciousness of guilt.”

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

2. “Due to the questionable quality of [the complaining witness’s] testimony, [the friend’s] evidence assumed a crucial role in the conviction of Bakken. [[Image here]] Given the closeness of the case and the importance of [the friend’s] testimony concerning Bakken’s purported admission, we believe that the trial court’s failure to give this mandatory cautionary instruction was so obviously prejudicial that we choose to notice the point despite the absence of any objection”

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

3. “Manslaughter embraces a killing without malice or intent, in doing some unlawful act not amounting to a felony nor naturally tending to cause death or great bodily injury . . . . It is the unlawful killing of a human being without intent to kill or inflict the injury causing death, committed accidentally in the commission of some unlawful act not felonious .”

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