State v. Barber’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 22 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[w]e do not find the absence of a definition of negligence in the statute indicative of legislative intent, and we are not persuaded by the State’s contention that when the legislature has meant to apply a criminal negligence standard, it has specifically done so____ Instead, we find this concept firmly rooted in our jurisprudence: When a crime is punishable as a felony, civil negligence ordinarily is an inappropriate predicate by which to define such criminal conduct____ We ... construe the statute as requiring at least a showing of criminal negligence in the absence of some contrary indication from the legislature that “the public interest in the matter is so compelling or that the potential for harm is so great that the interests of the public must override the interests of the individual” so as to justify civil negligence as a predicate for a felony.”

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