State v. McClear’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 1 district · 45 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 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““When not regulated by statutory provisions, we think that whenever the opinion of the juror has been formed upon hearing the evidence at a former trial, or at the preliminary examination before a committing magistrate, or from any cause has been so deliberately entertained that it has become a fixed and settled belief of the prisoner’s guilt or innocence, it would be wrong to receive him. In either event, in deciding these questions, courts should ever remember that the infirmities of human nature are such that opinions once deliberately formed and expressed cannot easily be erased, and that prejudices openly avowed cannot readily be eradicated from the mind. Hence, whenever it appears to the satisfaction of the court that the bias of the juror, actual or implied, is so strong that it cannot easily be shaken off, neither the prisoner nor the state ought to be subjected to the chance of conviction or acquittal it necessarily begets. But whenever the court is satisfied that the opinions of the juror were founded on newspaper reports and casual conversations, which the juror feels conscious he can readily dismiss, and where he has no deliberate and fixed opinion, or personal prejudice or bias, in favor of or against the defendant, he ought not to be excluded. The sum and substance of this whole question is that a juror must come to the trial with a mind uncommitted, and be prepared to weigh the evidence in impartial scales, and a true verdict render according to the law and the”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Williams v. United States

2. ““There has been no change of the fundamental rule that an accused person is to be tried by a fair and impartial jury. Formerly the fact that a juror had formed and expressed an opinion touching the guilt or innocence of a person accused of crime was in law a disqualification; and, although he expressed an opinion that he could hear and decide the ease upon the evidence produced, this did not render him competent. * * * Now, as formerly, an existing opinion, by a person called as a juror, of the guilt or innocence of a defendant charged with crime, is prima facie a disqualification; but it is not now, as-before, a conclusive objection, provided the juror makes the declaration specified (that he believes that such opinion or impression will not influence his verdict, and he can render an impartial verdict according to the evidence), and the court,' as judge of the fact, is satisfied that such opinion will not influence his action. But the declaration must be unequivocal. It does not satisfy the requirement, if the declaration is qualified or conditional. It is not enough to be able to point to detached language, which; alone construed, would seem to meet the statutory requirement, if, on construing the whole declaration together, it is apparent the juror is not able to express an absolute belief that his opinion will not influence his verdict.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Williams v. United States