Comer v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 5 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A Defendant causes the death of another person when the Defendant’s voluntary act brings about that person’s death, which would not have happened but for Defendant’s act. If it is demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that a Defendant recklessly fired shots along with others and a person’s death was caused by one of those shots, or if it is proved beyond a reasonable doubt that [a] Defendant recklessly participated in an exchange of gunfire that caused a person’s death, t hen the State need not prove that a particular shot, fired by a particular person caused the death. The State, however, must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a Defendant recklessly participated actively in the fatal shooting and that the death did not occur independently from Defendant’s conduct, before it can be said that he was a legal cause of the death.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Comer v. Pierce