Smith v. Lowe’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The federal decisions have made clear that the rule of collateral estoppel in criminal cases is not to be applied with the hypertechnical and archaic approach of a 19th century pleading book, but with realism and rationality. Where a previous judgment of acquittal was based upon a general verdict, as is usually the case, this approach requires a court to `examine the record of a prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, and conclude whether a rational jury could have grounded its verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration.' The inquiry `must be set in a practical frame and viewed with an eye to all the circumstances of the proceedings.' Any test more technically restrictive would, of course, simply amount to a rejection of the rule of collateral estoppel in criminal proceedings, at least in every case where the first judgment was based upon a general verdict of acquittal.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Benton v. Crittenden

2. “verdict. He was then indicted by a Pike County, Kentucky, grand jury for the murder of the truck driver. Against a claim of collateral estoppel, the Commonwealth argued that the federal jury could have found Smith not guilty because it did not believe the government had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the coal truck was being operated in interstate commerce at the time of the shooting. A majority of this Court found that argument to be”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Benton v. Crittenden

3. “[I]t is obvious that the federal jury acquitted Paul Smith because it simply did not believe Irvin Smith.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Benton v. Crittenden