State v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “One cannot have the purpose to promote murder by aiding another person unless one knows the other person intends to kill and thus the accessory will have the intent to kill. Murder in the first degree requires “deliberation”—a mental state not found in any other crime. It is possible for the accessory to have the purpose to promote a murder by aiding another person without necessarily have “deliberated.” To make it clear that to be guilty of murder in the first degree the defendant must have deliberated, the verdict director must require a finding of that element. The ordinary verdict director for murder in the first degree (MAI-CR Bd 318.02) provides for this in the third paragraph which states Third, that defendant did so after deliberation, which means cool reflection upon the matter for any length of time no matter how brief, If in using MAI-CR 3d 304.04 this element is ascribed to the defendant alone or to the defendant and the other person or persons, the requirement of finding that the defendant “deliberated” is satisfied. If, however, this element is not ascribed to the defendant but is ascribed solely to another person (as would be the case where the defendant did not perform any other conduct which caused the death and the defendant’s liability is based solely on his aiding the person who caused the death), then it is suggested that the ascription of that mental state to the defendant should be accomplished by modifying the paragraph following “then you are instruct”

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