852 So. 2d 547 - Randolph v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

34 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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he use of the flight instruction in this state can be described in one word— “dangerous.” In my years of experience as a trial judge, the flight instruction was very seldom requested by the prosecution and almost never given. It simply is not needed. While evidence of flight might be relevant, no legitimate purpose is served by the jury receiving an instruction from the trial court (which heightens the importance of the evidence in the eyes of the jury) highlighting for the jury the fact that the jury can consider evidence of flight as “a circumstance of guilt or guilty knowledge” when “that flight is unexplained and somehow probative of guilt or guilty knowledge.” See Reynolds v. State, 658 So.2d 852, 856 (Miss.1995); Fuselier v. State, 468 So.2d 45, 57 (Miss.1985). The term “unexplained flight” is somewhat nebulous, anyway, and a trial court, by giving a flight instruction, simply puts itself in a position of possibly placing reversible error in an otherwise clean record. If a trial court persists in giving a flight instruction, I suggest that it do so with great caution.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Vance Drummer v. State of Mississippi · States v. State

2. “[R]eversal can only occur when evidence of one or more of the elements of the charged offense is such that `reasonable and fair minded jurors could only find the accused not guilty.'”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 999 So. 2d 1287 - Moton v. State · 981 So. 2d 964 - Scott v. State

3. “Every person who shall feloniously take the personal property of another, in his presence or from his person and against his will, by violence to his person or by putting such person in fear of some immediate injury to his person, shall be guilty of robbery.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Moore v. State · 981 So. 2d 964 - Scott v. State