State v. Patterson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Perhaps legal scholars and academicians can detect a fine point of distinction between [“lack of consideration” and “failure of consideration”]. We do not believe that such legal niceties ... would be either discernible nor meaningful to jurors untrained in the law.... We find no prejudice to [MFA] could have resulted from the use of [both phrases in instruction No. 6]_ To hold otherwise would give credence to the not always facetious bromide “instructions are written not for the ears of the jurors but for the eyes of appellate judges.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. MFA INC. v. Dettler

2. “NOTE: Any variation in ascribing the elements of an offense to the defendant or to the other person or persons and any variation in the selection of alternatives in the paragraph following ‘then you are instructed that the offense of [name of offense] has occurred ...’ shall not be deemed reversible error in the absence of prejudice.”

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