100 Ark. App. 234 - Hester v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In the case at bar, Mr. Hester waived ■ his right to a jury trial and then immediately changed his mind and decided to take his counsel’s advice and request a trial by jury. There was no indication of any bad faith, and the prosecutor made no objection to appellant’s request to withdraw the waiver. Moreover, given the timeliness of the withdrawal request, there was no indication that this would have caused any delay, inconvenience to witnesses, or prejudice to the State. The State argues in its brief that, because appellant offered no argument or explanation below in support of his request to withdraw the waiver, any supporting arguments raised on appeal are outside the scope of appellate review. We disagree. A trial by jury is perhaps the most basic of, rights afforded an accused. See Bartlett v. U.S., 354 F.2d 745 (8th Cir.1966). A criminal defendant is not required to explain his decision for attempting to exercise this right, and under the circumstances presented before the trial court in this case its decision to deny appellant s withdrawal request was arbitrary and 17groundless, even in the absence-of any accompanying argument by appellant. It appears that the trial court denied the request on the sole basis that there had been a valid waiver, and this was an abuse of discretion.”

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