Keith v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

41 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 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The indictment is the foundation underlying a criminal prosecution. If the indictment is seriously flawed, the conviction cannot stand. A mere formal defect does not require dismissal of an indictment after the guilt of the defendant has been established at a fair trial. But courts do not hesitate to dismiss an indictment, even after a conviction, when the defect in the indictment is substantial. The conviction must be overturned when an indictment is invalid and the error was properly preserved by a timely objection prior to trial.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. McMahan v. State · Morgan v. State

2. “In Gray v. State, 463 P.2d 897, 906 (Alaska 1970), we held that a killing done in the perpetration of a felony, but without a specific intent or purpose to kill, constitutes manslaughter. This is, in a sense, a felony-manslaughter rule and appears to be a rather distinctive homicide scheme.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Pfister v. State · Todd v. State

3. “If the defendant attacks the character of the victim, can the prosecution rebut by introducing evidence of the character of the defendant? Wigmore and other writers favored an affirmative answer and this has a certain appeal in terms of "psychological relevance.” However, the common law rule, except in a few states, was apparently to the contrary. At least in the case of the claim of self-defense, one could plausibly argue under Rule 404(a)(2) that the evidence of the defendant’s character for violence does tend to "rebut" proof of the victim's character offered to prove that he was the first aggressor. There is no evidence that the Advisory Committee ever considered this issue, but the structure of the rule tends to suggest that proof of the character of the accused and of the victim were intended to be separable and that the defendant can attack the character of the victim without exposing his own character to prosecutorial attack.”

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