Hamilton v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

16 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[a] person acts wantonly with respect to a result or to a circumstance described by a statute defining an offense when he is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur or that the circumstance exists. The risk must be of such nature and degree that disregard thereof constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Berryman v. Commonwealth · Turner v. Commonwealth

2. “A person is guilty of murder when: (b) Under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life, he wantonly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person and thereby causes the death of another person.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Berryman v. Commonwealth · Martin v. Commonwealth

3. ““A majority of the members of this Court is of the opinion that the legislature enacted KRS 507.020(l)(b) to deter such conduct.” Id. at 544 .”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Walden v. Commonwealth · Martin v. Commonwealth