Mungin v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

36 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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[a] general verdict need not be reversed `where the general verdict could have rested upon a theory of liability without adequate evidentiary support when there was an alternative theory of guilt for which the evidence was sufficient.'”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Mungin v. State · 867 So. 2d 384 - Cardenas v. State

2. “Betty Jean Woods, a convenience store clerk in Jacksonville, was shot once in the head on September 16, 1990, and died four days later. There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting, but shortly after Woods was shot a customer [Kirkland] entering the store passed a man leaving the store hurriedly with a paper bag. The customer, who found the injured clerk, later identified the man as Mungin. After the shooting, a store supervisor found a $59.05 discrepancy in cash at the store. Mungin was arrested on September 18, 1990, in Kingsland, Georgia. Police found a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol, bullets, and Mungin’s Georgia identification when they searched his house. An analysis showed that the bullet recovered from Woods had been fired from the pistol found at Mungin’s house. Jurors also heard Williams [ 1 ] rule evidence of two other crimes. They were instructed to consider this evidence only for the limited purpose of proving Mungin’s identity. First, William Rudd testified that Mungin came to the convenience store where he worked on the morning of September 14, 1990, and asked for cigarettes. When Rudd turned to get the cigarettes, Mungin shot him in the back. He also took money from a cash box and a cash register. Authorities determined that an expended shell recovered from the store came from the gun seized in Kingsland. Second, Thomas Barlow testified that he saw Meihua Wang Tsai screaming in a Tallahassee shopping center on the afternoon of September 14, 1990. Tsai had been”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 141 So. 3d 138 - Mungin v. State · Mungin v. State

3. “"Jurors are not generally equipped to determine whether a particular theory of conviction submitted to them is contrary to law— whether, for example, the action in question is protected by the Constitution, is time barred, or fails to come within the statutory definition of the crime. When, therefore, jurors have been left the option of relying upon a legally inadequate theory, there is no reason to think that their own intelligence and expertise will save them from that error. Quite the opposite is true, however, when they have been left the option of relying upon a factually inadequate theory, since jurors are well-equipped to analyze the evidence. As the Seventh Circuit has put it: `It is one thing to negate a verdict that, while supported by the evidence, may have been based upon an erroneous view of the law; it is another to do so merely on the chance— remote, it seems to us, that the jury convicted on a ground that was not supported by adequate evidence when there existed alternative grounds for which the evidence was sufficient.'" [e.s., c.o.]”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. San Martin v. State · Bonine v. State