Lopez v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “That’s the situation you have here in this case. There is one person that didn’t get to speak to you today and tell you her side of the story and that is my client, and her name is Cydney Myers. And that was what Cydney Myers looked like back in 1979, and this is what she looked like after David Lopez got through with her. I apologize that I can’t call her to the stand. But that’s the way murders occur. They do not occur at 12:00 noon on the Capitol steps. They occur in apartments where nobody else is and bodies are dumped at places to cause people to look at different leads. Now, I also want to remind you that the State need not prove a motive in this case. You remember that at voir dire, [sic] nothing in that charge requires us to prove a motive. I submit to you there is, however, a motive for this killing. David Lopez knows that motive. But the State cannot and is not held to show you that motive. The State cannot bring it to you. I submit to you there is a motive in this case.”

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

2. “You wait and you say, well, what kind of evidence do we have against David, that someone had the impression that Cyd— Cydney Myers didn’t like him? I wouldn’t have liked him either if he was around my house and wasn’t working. This is not the same thing as killing and raping and sodomizing some other human being. What is there to show any evidence of that kind of behavior? But show any evidence of that kind of behavior? But loe (sic) let’s see, let’s talk about Mr. Rodriguez ...”

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

3. “... I am telling you again, we have a 31 year old man who has been here for the last nine years who has a wife and three kids who has remained here in this area, who gets indicted, lo these eight years later and then we have a woman who he hasn’t had trouble with, trouble [sic] and this woman is brutalized and beaten and roped burned and rug burned and sodomized and raped after death.”

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