653 So. 2d 1274 - State v. Beason’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

20 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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “a statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 710 So. 2d 274 - State v. Burmaster · 688 So. 2d 628 - State v. Rhodes

2. “The relatively recent recognition of declarations against penal interest as an exception to the hearsay rule by the Federal Rules of Evidence would seem to counsel against a headlong rush to broadly embrace the exception as providing a sufficient substitute for cross-examination and personal confrontation in cases of the present kind. We recognize that statements which adversely implicate the penal interest of the declarant alone for many years have been widely recognized as normally reliable and, where the declarant is unavailable, have usually been admitted in evidence in federal and most state courts. See E. Clearly, McCormick on Evidence § 278 (3d ed. 1984). Arguably, such statements may be deemed a "firmly rooted" exception to the hearsay rule under the Lee formulation. It appears to us, however, that there is another category of statements against penal interest that should generally be regarded as inadmissible under the Confrontation Clause, ... namely statements accusatory of another taken by law enforcement personnel with a view to prosecution. Such statements have two characteristics that together make them inherently unreliable: (1) the declarant makes accusatory statements that inculpate another; and (2) these statements are made to nonundercover law-enforcement personnel after the commission of the offense. In that generic situation there always exists the strong possibility that the declarant has the "desire to shift or spread blame, curry favor, avenge himself,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 688 So. 2d 552 - State v. Kimble

3. “qualifying words apply to neglect as well as mistreatment. The court then reviewed the definition of criminal negligence set forth in La. R.S. 14:12. Criminal negligence requires a gross deviation below the standard of care expected to be maintained by a reasonably careful man under like circumstances. It calls for substantially more than the ordinary lack of care which may be the basis of tort liability, and furnishes a more explicit statement of that lack of care which has been variously characterized in criminal statutes as”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 968 So. 2d 1190 - State v. Booker