8 Smith & H. 23 - Davis v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate · 35 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 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The court below followed the rule announced in Wheeler v. Parr, 3 Tenn.Civ.App. 374, and we think this rule is sound. In that case, in a scholarly opinion, Judge Hughes reviewed the authorities, our own cases and others. He pointed out, while previous decisions of this court had stated broadly that a nonexpert witness might not testify as to the mental condition of another without stating the facts on which his opinion was based, that in none of those cases had a differentiation been made between such a witness testifying as to insanity and such a witness testifying as to sanity. Judge Hughes said: “ ‘It is clear that one who is perfectly sane, going about his ordinary avocations, and whose sanity has never been questioned, is judged by his entire course of conduct rather than by any particular incident or incidents; and to require a witness who expresses an opinion that such person is sane to give facts on which to base that opinion, further than that he has or had sufficient acquaintance with the person whose sanity is in question, or sufficient dealing or relations with him to form an opinion, would be to require the picking out of some special act or acts as distinguished from a series of thousands of acts, and to base his opinion of sanity or insanity on such special acts. This, it occurs to us, is requiring a witness to separate one sane act or a few sane acts from a thousand, and say that he bases his opinion on those, when in truth he does not do so, but rather on th”

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

2. ““We are of opinion that if as a matter of fact the deceased had debauched the wife of plaintiff in error and the plaintiff in error had been apprised of that fact and had become convinced of its truth on the day of the wedding or thereafter, and, with reasonable expedition while under the influence of passion and agi tation produced by such information, had killed Noe, he would only have been guilty of voluntary manslaughter..” (Emphasis supplied.)”

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

3. ““It is not necessary that a defendant’s reason be dethroned to mitigate a killing to manslaughter. It is error to so instruct a jury ... If the excitement and passion adequately aroused obscures the reason of the defendant, the killing will be reduced to manslaughter ... A defendant acting under such temporary mental stress is presumed to be incapable of malice, an essential ingredient of murder.” 161 Tenn. at 35 , 28 S.W.2d at 996 .”

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