McQuarters v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

30 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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The “affirmative links rule” is designed to protect the innocent bystander from conviction based solely upon his fortuitous proximity to someone else’s drugs. This rule simply restates the common-sense notion that a person— such as a father, son, spouse, roommate, or friend — may jointly possess property like a house but not necessarily jointly possess the contraband found in that house. Thus, we have formulated the rule that “[w]hen the accused is not in exclusive possession of the place where the substance is found, it cannot be concluded that the accused had knowledge of and control over the contraband unless there are additional independent facts and circumstances which affirmatively link the accused to the contraband.””

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