State v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support a finding of guilt is based in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. No person may be deprived of liberty, ‘except upon evidence that is sufficient fairly to support a conclusion that every element of the crime has been established beyond a reasonable doubt.’ The constitutional sufficiency of the evidence is a question of law to be determined, in the first instance, by the trial court on proper motion by the defendant and again on appeal. When properly raised by the defendant, the question of sufficiency arises before the case is put to the jury; the challenge is to the ‘submissibility’ of the case. Therefore, any guilty verdict subsequently rendered by the jury is wholly irrelevant to the question of whether the case was sufficient to go to the jury at all. The Court’s review is limited to determining whether the evidence is sufficient to persuade any reasonable juror as to each of the elements of the crime, beyond a reasonable doubt. To ensure that the reviewing court does not engage in futile attempts to weigh the evidence or judge the witnesses’ credibility, courts employ ‘a legal conclusion that upon judicial review all of the evidence is to be considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution.’ Thus, evidence that supports a finding of guilt is taken as true and all logical inferences that support a finding of guilt and that may reasonably be drawn from the ”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Robinson · State v. Mickle

2. “the record does not support a finding of a real probability of prejudice therefrom sufficient to find reversible error”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 234 Ill. 2d 173 - People v. Glasper