Boyett v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
39 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 39 later decisions — most recently August 2015 · most notably Livingston v. State (1987), Drew v. State (1987)
39 state decisions
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.
Relationships
Relies on Almanza v. State · Carter v. State · Eddlemon v. State · Ex Parte Thomas · Van Byrd v. State
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 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]f you do not so believe, [the defendant is guilty of the greater offense] or if you have a reasonable doubt thereof, you will acquit the defendant and say by your verdict ‘not guilty’ but if you do not so believe, or if you have a reasonable doubt thereof, you will acquit the defendant of [the greater offense] and proceed to consider whether the defendant is guilty of the [lesser offense]. Id.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Harris v. State · Campbell v. State“[T]he instruction given, although not a model charge, essentially instructed the jurors to acquit, without specifically using the word ‘acquit,’ by stating that if the jurors had a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of appellant to the greater offense, they should next consider the lesser included offense. This instruction properly informed the jurors to consider appellant’s requested instructions on lesser included offenses. The jury apparently understood the instructions correctly since they found appellant guilty of the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter, thus acquitting him of murder. The charge read as a whole adequately instructed the jurors about acquitting appellant and about considering the lesser included offenses requested by appellant. The second part of appellant’s contention is that the charge does not instruct the jury to acquit if it has a reasonable doubt as to whether appellant is guilty of any offense. The last page of the charge instructs the jurors, “In case you have a reasonable doubt as to defendant’s guilt after considering all the evidence before you and, these instructions, you tuill acquit him. ” The better practice is to instmct the jury that if it has a reasonable doubt as to whether a defendant is guilty of any offense defined in the charge, it will find the defendant not guilty and the better location for such an instruction is after the last lesser included offense in the charge. However, we hold that the instmction given is, in es”
3 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Harris v. State · Campbell v. State“1) that the evidence was unknown or unavailable to the movant before trial; 2) that the movant’s failure to discover or obtain it was not due to want of diligence on his part; 3) that its materiality was such as would probably bring about a different result at another trial; and 4) that it was competent, not merely cumulative, corroborative, or impeaching.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Drew v. State · Beard v. State
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.