81 N.C. App. 438 - State v. Sanders’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Court: Okay. I assume you have not reached a verdict. Foreman: Your Honor, we have a difference of understanding on that matter. It is my interpretation that we have but questions were raised and I need a clarification from you at that point and I had hoped before we came back out. Foreman: Your Honor, I understood your instructions to indicate that it was our task to take these options and in the light of the evidence presented in this Court and our common sense understanding of that agree on one of these four verdicts. There are several specifications in there and we discussed this in what we all thought was orderly manner and we agree unanimously on one of these options. Then there was the interpretation advanced that we had to be unanimous in every detail. Obviously we were not unanimous in one of the details. And so then there was the notion that we were not unanimous in our agreement because we choose — we did not choose the first one, the unanimity was on another option. Court: On the option that you ultimately select, any one of the four, you must be unanimous. Foreman: Yes, sir. That was my interpretation but I was not able to convince all members that that was the end of it, that any misgivings about any other point were automatically dropped once you have unanimity on that. Court: That’s correct.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 158 N.C. App. 563 - State v. Mays

2. “It is readily apparent from the colloquy between the court and the jury foreman in the jury’s presence that the jury was not unanimous as to the “first option,” the indicted offense, and that some members of the jury believed that to reject that “option” required a unanimous vote. The court correctly agreed with the foreman that this was not a proper interpretation, and correctly instructed the jury that its decision on any one of the four options (including not guilty) must be unanimous. . . . The jury had already agreed unanimously on a lesser offense, and simply was confused as to whether their rejection of the greater offense had to be unanimous. The court instructed them correctly as to their duty.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 158 N.C. App. 563 - State v. Mays

3. “Mere failure to follow the form instructions of G.S. 15A-1235 is not in itself reversible error.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 196 N.C. App. 792 - State v. Valdez