State v. Russell’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 27 later decisions — most recently January 2026 · most notably State v. Tillman (1987), State v. Saunders (1999)
3 federal appellate · 18 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 In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Harris v. McRae · 94 Wash. 2d 216 - State v. Green · United States v. Gipson · 9 Cal. 3d 185 - People v. Milan
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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he decisions are virtually unanimous that a defendant is not entitled to a unanimous verdict on the precise manner in which the crime was committed.” Id. at 165 . Justice Stewart concurred in the result and wrote separately. He indicated his view “that it would have been preferable for the trial judge to give an instruction on unanimity as to the defendant's mens rea,”
3 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Hummel · State v. Powell“the fundamental principle of jury unanimity was [not] violated in this case.” Id. at 169 . Justice Durham also concurred in the result and authored an opinion. She indicated that she would require unanimity except where "(1) a single crime has been charged, even though it may be committed in alternative ways or by alternative but related acts, (2) those acts are not substantially distinct from each other in terms of either their legal, factual, or conceptual content, and (3) the State has presented substantial evidence supporting each alternative mode of commission of the crime.” Id. at 176 . Yet she voted to affirm because she found these conditions to be met. Id. at 178 (concluding that the three alternative mens rea elements arise under "a single offense,” that the three alternative elements were "significantly distinct from one another in terms of their legal or factual content,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. State v. Hummel““It is not necessary that a jury, in order to find a verdict, should concur in a single view of the transaction disclosed by the evidence. If the conclusion may be justified upon either of two interpretations of the evidence, the verdict cannot be impeached by showing that a part of the jury proceeded upon one interpretation and part upon the other.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Tenney
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.