State v. Evans’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “1. That [Evans] had told people he had thought about killing Sheilah. 2. That Sheilah was planning to get a divorce and that [Evans] was upset about the possibility of the divorce and having to divide the marital property and perhaps lose his home. 3. That [Evans] had been informed by his attorney that he would be better off financially if something were to happen to his wife before the divorce. 4. That [Evans] made statements to a number of people about his wife ending up in the swimming pool and to one person that if his wife did not forget about the divorce “they’re liable to find her floating in the pool.” 5. That Sheilah was frightened of [Evans], she had gotten an ex parte restraining order against him at one point; she told Várious people that if something happened to her they should not assume it was an accident. 6. That [Evans] picked Sheilah up at the Tulsa Airport on the night of September 8, 1994; on 'the way back to Springfield Sheilah had told [Evans] that she was planning on going through with the divorce; [Evans] and Sheilah arrived home between 1:00 and 1:30 a.m. on September 9, 1994; and paramedics arrived at 2:55 a.m. to find that Sheilah had drowned in the pool. 7. That the autopsy revealed fresh bruising on Sheilah’s head consistent with blows from a human fist. The bruises were made within approximately two hours prior to death. The bruises were inconsistent with a fall into the pool. They resulted from “pretty good blows [causing] this amount of hemorrh”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Evans v. Luebbers

2. “The corpus delicti in a homicide case consists of two elements — (1) proof of the death of the victim and (2) evidence that the criminal agency of another was the cause of the victim’s death. The State must prove that the death was neither self-inflicted nor the result of natural causes or accident.... The corpus delicti cannot be presumed and must be proved by legal evidence sufficient to show that the specific crime charged has actually been committed by someone. However, proof of the corpus delicti need not include proof of defendant’s connection with the crime charged.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Hayes