State v. Beecroft’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[Aljthough law enforcement activities are typically accusatory and adversarial in nature, a medical examiner’s reported observations as to a body’s condition are normally made as part of an independent effort to determine a cause of death. Indeed, a medical examiner, although often called a forensic expert, bears more similarity to a treating physician than he does to one who is merely rendering an opinion for use in the trial of a case.”

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

2. “Justice Harry Blackmun recognized that jurors “tend to assume [scientific evidence] is more accurate and objective than lay testimony.” Consequently, “[t]he major danger of scientific evidence is its potential to mislead the jury” because “an aura of scientific infallibility may shroud the evidence and thus lead the jury to accept it without critical scrutiny.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. State v. Hayes

3. “[n]ot only does a defendant have a right to present a complete defense, a defendant has a right-at least in theory-to meet the State as an equal in our adversarial system of justice: 'strength against strength, resource against resource, argument against argument.'”

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