State v. Stein’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 15 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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Such instructions, which place restrictions upon the jury’s use of inculpatory circumstantial evidence, are given to protect the accused by confining the jury, in arriving at a verdict of guilt, to a reliance only upon such facts and circumstances as form a complete chain which, in the light of the evidence as a whole, leads so directly to the guilt of the accused as to exclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, any reasonable inference other than that of guilt. The need for protective restrictions upon the use of inculpatory circumstantial evidence 'is elementary. For example, where circumstantial evidence consists in reasoning from a minor fact or series of minor facts to establish a principal fact, the process is fatally vicious if the circumstances, from which an attempt is made to deduce a conclusion of guilt, depends upon speculation and conjecture.”

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

2. “identifying the circumstances proved, we construe conflicting evidence in a light most favorable to the verdict.” While the dissent is correct that we construe conflicting evidence in a light most favorable to the verdict, in this case the evidence is not in conflict. Nor is there any dispute in the circumstances proved. Instead, it is the inferences that can be made from the evidence and the circumstances proved that stand in conflict, and”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Al-Naseer

3. “[A] defendant is not relying on conjecture or speculation when the defendant ... points to evidence in the record that is consistent with a rational theory other than guilt.”

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