People v. Goetz’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 118 later decisions — most recently January 2022 · most notably Brown v. Artuz (1997), Ronald Davis v. Wayne Strack, Superintendent, Fishkill Correctional Facility and Dennis C. Vacco, New York State Attorney General (2001)
11 federal appellate · 36 state decisions — followed in 10 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
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 118 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he determination of reasonableness must be based on the “circumstances” facing a defendant or his “situation’!.] Such terms encompass more than the physical movements of the potential assailant.... [TJhese terms include any relevant knowledge the defendant had about the person. They also necessarily bring in the physical attributes of all persons involved, including the defendant. Furthermore, the defendant’s circumstances encompass any prior experiences he had which could provide a reasonable basis for a belief that another person’s intentions were to injure [or commit a crime upon] him or that the use of deadly force was necessary under the circumstances.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Xi Van Ha v. State · People v. Cox“Under [the lower courts’] reading of the statute, a jury which believed a defendant’s testimony that he felt that his own actions were warranted and were reasonable would have to acquit him, regardless of what anyone else in defendant’s situation might have concluded. Such an interpretation defies ordinary meaning and significance of the term “reasonably” in a statute, and misconstrues the clear intent of the Legislature, in enacting section 35.15, to retain an objective element as part of any provision authorizing the use of deadly force.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[h]e reasonably believes that such other person is using or about to use deadly physical force.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.