State v. Gillespie’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 16 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"Count 2, conspiracy. Generally speaking, and in the context of this case, a conspiracy is a combination of two or more persons to commit an unlawful act. A conspiracy is, in effect, a partnership in a criminal venture. Once the unlawful agreement has been made, the crime of conspiracy is complete. "The law provides that every person who conspires with another to commit a crime has thereby committed a separate criminal offense. In other words, the law provides that if two or more persons conspire to commit a substantive criminal act, such as murder, each person is also guilty of the separate offense of conspiracy. It is important to remember that conspiracy is, by itself, a separate and distinct offense from the substantive offense of murder, which is the object of the alleged conspiracy. "Since by its nature the crime of conspiracy requires a combination of, and an agreement between two or more persons, you are instructed, as to Count 2 only, to either convict Arun Ros and Veasna Sin of conspiracy or to acquit Arun Ros and Veas-na Sin of the crime of conspiracy. You cannot convict one defendant and acquit the other. "In order to convict the defendants of the conspiracy charge, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was an agreement between Veasna Sin and Arun Ros to commit murder. Although a common agreement is the keystone of any criminal conspiracy, the terms of such an agreement are often difficult to prove. Consequently, the conspirators’ goals may be ”

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

2. “"In order for you to convict the defendants of first degree murder, you must find beyond a reasonable doubt that each of the following elements exists: "One; that the defendants willfully caused the death of Say Heang Lee, also known as Heang Ly Say; two, that the defendants acted with malice aforethought; and that third element is that the defendants acted with premeditation. "Let me define some of these terms for you. As to the word 'willfully,' an act is done willfully if it is done voluntarily and intentionally and not by mistake or accident. "The terms 'maliciously' and ‘with premeditation’ mean deliberate and voluntary actions resulting from the defendants' prior consideration of the act itself. Such a prior consideration, however, must have existed in the minds of the defendants for more than simply a moment's duration. In other words, the defendants must have already fixed in their minds for more than a moment an intention to kill before the fatal act occurred; and that conscious fixation must have been more than just a fleeting or momentary thought.””

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

3. “"The first theory involves those killings in which the defendant formed a momentary intent to kill contemporaneous with the homicide. * * * The second theory includes felony murder for inherently dangerous felonies that are not expressly listed within the statutory definition of first-degree murder. * * * The third theory of second-degree murder involves those killings in which the defendant killed with wanton recklessness or conscious disregard for the possibility of death or of great bodily harm." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).”

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