State v. Saunders’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[g]iven the Utah Supreme Court’s struggle in dealing with unanimity problems, we cannot say that any error the trial court committed in instructing the jury that it need not unanimously agree on which specific act ... defendant committed — so long as it believed, beyond a reasonable doubt, that defendant was guilty of all of the elements of the crime charged — would have been obvious to the trial court.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Tenney · State v. Saunders

2. “"The State didn't even want to talk about all this stuff. We didn't charge him with anything until 1992. Do you know what happened? The 11th day of April, 1991, Det. Mitchell talks to this guy. Mitchell talks to the defendant right there. Where is that, 1991, April, bingo, right here (indicating).... What did they talk about? Well we don't know. We didn't get into that, did we, because we don't care, necessarily, except for one thing. I asked the defendant pointblank, `So, your decision not to put Desitin on your daughter's vagina anymore had something to do with your talk with Det. Mitchell in April, on April 11, 1991, didn't it?' And he said yes. So he is on notice right here that the State is real interested in how he treats his daughter's vagina. And the presumption of innocence saved his bacon in 1991, and the State didn't do anything and nothing happened."”

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

3. “Before the jury arrives at a guilty verdict, the law requires that each of the jurors be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that an act alleged in the Information occurred. There is no requirement that the jurors be unanimous about precisely which act occurred or when or where the act or acts occurred. The only requirement is that each juror believe, beyond a reasonable doubt, that at least one prohibited act occurred sometime between October of 1991 and May of 1992, in Salt Lake County, involving the victim and the defendant.”

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