People v. Shaver’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “There is no principle of law making it obligatory upon the court or the jury to accept appellant's version of the circumstances leading up to the killing. This principle is so well established that citation of authorities in support thereof becomes unnecessary. Evidently the jury refused to believe appellant's statement of the reasons that prompted him to take his wife's life. This was a question exclusively within their province to decide. Having decided the question adversely to appellant, this court is bound by their decision thereof as it is in the case of any other question of fact passed upon by the jury. ... This evidence was sufficient to justify a verdict of murder in the first degree. (People v. Murphy, 1 Cal.2d 37 [ 32 P.2d 635 ], People v. McQuate, 2 Cal.2d 227, 233 [ 39 P.2d 408 ], and People v. Ottey, supra [ 5 Cal.2d 714 ( 56 P.2d 193 )].) However, the case is made much stronger against the appellant when we consider his own admissions that he killed his wife with his own hand, and immediately fled from the scene of the crime. The jury was perfectly justified in accepting those portions of the appellant's statement which appeal to them while rejecting those that they did not believe. (People v. Murphy, 1 Cal.2d 37, 40 [ 32 P.2d 635 ].) With this evidence before us, we are not able to bring ourselves to the conclusion that the judgment against the appellant should be reduced to murder in the second degree.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Slater

2. “It is not necessary for us to discuss at any length the three cases relied upon by appellant in which there was a reduction of the judgment. The case of People v. Kelley, supra, has been given consideration in our opinion in the case of People v. Murphy, supra. The language used in the opinion in the Murphy case is quite pertinent to the instant case, the two cases having many points of similarity. The other two cases relied upon by appellant are People v. Howard, supra, and People v. Connors, supra [ 124 Cal.App. 216 ( 12 P.2d 43 )]. In those cases the judgments were reduced from murder in the first degree to murder in the second degree for the reason that if the jury should reject the statement of the defendant as to the manner in which the deceased met death, then there would be a dearth of evidence tending to show the conditions as they existed at the time of the homicide from which it might be reasonably held that the murder was in fact wilful, premeditated, and intentional. No such condition exists in the present case as we have shown that if we exclude the entire statement of the appellant, there is then sufficient evidence to show him guilty of murder in the first degree. The instant case is much like the case of People v. McQuate, supra, where the two cases of People v. Howard and People v. Connors, supra, are discussed and distinguished from the McQuate case.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Slater