State v. Reed’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 24 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““There is no exact mathematical test by which we may certainly know whether a doubt, entertained in any given case, is reasonable or otherwise. What would be reasonable to one person might be far otherwise to another. Therefore, no certain line, as upon a plan, can be drawn, that shall be recognized by every one, as the dividing line between the mere skeptical doubt and that which has the sanction of reason. Hence, whatever explanations may be given to the phrase, its meaning practically must depend very largely upon the character of the mind of the person acting. Lexicographers tell us that reasonable is that which is ‘agreeable or conformable to reason.’ The doubt, therefore, which conforms to the reason of the person examining, is to him a reasonable doubt. If it does not so conform, to him it is unreasonable, and will not be entertained. We must assume that the jurors are reasonable men, and as such they must be addressed. When told that, in order to convict, the proof must remove every reasonable doubt of guilt from their minds, whatever the form of words used, if any heed is given to the instruction the result must be that each individual juror will understand it and act according to the dictates of his own reason; and if, tried by that test, the doubt is reasonable, conviction must fail; otherwise it would follow.””

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