State v. Winchenbach’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Defendant attempts to portray the victim as twice provoking him into arguments, first, when she pulled a telephone cord out of the wall inside the trailer, and second, when she walked up to him when he was allegedly breaking her car window. Regardless of who was the first aggressor inside the trailer, there is simply no evidence that the victim provoked defendant into hitting her with the bat in order to defend himself. Defendant’s argument on appeal that if the victim ‘was hurt, it was during the defendant’s attempt to wrest the bat from her and get rid of it’ had no support in the record. The victim testified that defendant hit her with the bat, and when she picked up the bat and went to swing it at him, he grabbed it and threw it over the trailer. There was no other testimony on this point. The Superior Court did not err in declining to instruct on self defense.”

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

2. “[s]he was backed against the kitchen counter, and he slapped and choked her. She bit him [and chased him out to the car] ... [defendant grabbed an aluminum baseball bat outside the trailer. The victim pleaded with him not to smash her car, and tried to hold him back. Defendant swore at her, and hit and broke her car window. She grabbed his arm. He turned around and ‘went to hit her with the baseball bat.’ The bat struck her hands which were in front of her face, and she fell down.”

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