Reeves v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 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 1 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “For claims of non-constitutional error, we, like the Supreme Court, hold that “a conviction should not be overturned unless, after examining the record as a whole, a court concludes that an error may have had ‘substantial influence’ on the outcome of the proceeding.” Put another way, if the reviewing court has “a grave doubt” that the result was free from the substantial influence of the error, then it must treat the error as if it did. “Grave doubt” means that “in the judge’s mind, the matter is so evenly balanced that he feels himself in virtual equipoise as to the harmlessness of the error.” Thus, “in cases of grave doubt as to harmlessness the petitioner must win.””

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