People v. Toledo’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

42 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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The right of necessary self-defense, long recognized and protected by the law, obviously deals with an emergency situation in which a certain degree of elasticity is essential if the defense is to be of any practical value to the person assaulted. . . . “ [P. 581.] In the instant ease, as appellant’s brief asserts, ‘the record is silent of any evidence to bring home to the defendant any violent act committed by him toward the deceased, ’ other than that done in repelling the knife assault of the deceased. ‘Unless,’ as appellant says, ‘we arbitrarily see fit to believe only those words of the defendant’s statement and testimony wherein he acknowledges striking the decedent and disbelieve all the rest of his statement and testimony and further disbelieve the testimony of other witnesses as to the circumstances leading up to the blows being struck by Toledo, it cannot be determined that a criminal homicide was committed. The prosecution having presented as a part of its case the statement of the defendant which justified the homicide is bound by that evidence in the absence of proof to the contrary. ’ “In this connection may be noted the case of People v. Salaz, 66 Cal.App. 173,181 [ 225 P. 777 ], where the court said: ‘The jury could not have found, from the evidence for the people, that the killing was done by appellant except upon the latter’s admissions, which carried, in close and immediate connection with proof of the killing, circumstances of necessary self-defense. ... ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Collins