State v. Kennedy’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In order for a person lawfully to use force in self-defense, he must reasonably believe he is in imminent danger of harm from the other person. He need not be in actual danger but he must have a reasonable belief that he is in such danger. If he has such a belief, he is then permitted to use that amount of force which he reasonably believes to be necessary to protect himself.””

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

2. ““As used in this instruction, the term ‘reasonable belief means a belief based on reasonable grounds, that is, grounds which could lead a reasonable person in the same situation to the same belief. This depends upon how the facts reasonably appeared. It does not depend upon whether the belief turned out to be true or false.””

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