Berg v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(1) ‘Obscene’ means having as a whole a dominant theme that: (A) appeals to the prurient interest of the average person applying contemporary community standards; (B) depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and (C) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” (Emphasis supplied.)”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Carlock v. State · Keller v. State

2. ““The result of the Miller cases, therefore, as a matter of constitutional law and federal statutory construction, is to permit a juror sitting in obscenity cases to draw on knowledge of the community or vicinage from which he comes in deciding what conclusion ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards’ would reach in a given case. Since this case was tried in the Southern District of California, and presumably jurors from throughout the judicial district were available to serve on the panel which tried petitioners, it would be the standards of that ‘community’ upon which the jurors would draw. But this is not to say that a district court would not be at liberty to admit evidence of standards existing in some place outside of this particular district, if it felt such evidence would assist the jurors in the resolution of the issues which they were to decide.” (Emphasis added)”

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