Geiger v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Ordinarily, failure to specifically object to a jury instruction results in waiver of that issue. Nevertheless, an error may not be subject to waiver if it is deemed "fundamental error." To be deemed fundamental, the error must be a substantial blatant violation of basic principles that renders a trial unfair to a defendant. Fundamental error must be so prejudicial to the rights of the defendant as to make a fair trial impossible.”

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

2. “A mandatory presumption instructs the jury that it must infer the presumed fact if the State proves certain predicate facts. A permissive inference suggests to the jury a possible conclusion to be drawn if the State proves predicate facts, but does not require the jury to draw that conclusion.”

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

3. “However, citing Francis, we found that general instructions as to the State's burden and the defendant's presumption of innocence are not enough to cure any infirmity in the challenged portion of the instruction.”

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