Stephens v. Miller’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

23 federal appellate · 14 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 53 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Our assessment goes beyond merely reciting broad formulations of countervailing constitutional interests. We examine the justifications for excluding or admitting particular evidence in a partic ular case. A colorable claim that the application of state evidentiary rules has interfered with a defendant’s right to present a defense triggers an assessment whether these legitimate state interests, such as interests in preserving order, in excluding unreliable evidence and in maintaining control over court procedures, are materially advanced by the exclusion of certain evidence.... On the other side of the balance, we also examine carefully the significance of the contested evidence to the defendant’s case.... The strength of defendant’s argument that state rules of evidence, rather than the defendant’s right to present exculpatory evidence, should give ground depend largely on the importance of the evidence.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 457 F. Supp. 2d 865 - Wilson v. Firkus

2. “Stephens’ first contention need not detain us long. He argues that we should grant his petition because the Indiana trial court and the Indiana Supreme Court misapplied the Indiana Rape Shield Statute under Indiana law. That may be, but whether the Indiana courts correctly applied their own law is, by itself, no concern of ours. Federal habeas actions do not lie for mere errors of state laws. We ask only whether Indiana denied Stephens his rights under the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States. We therefore will not consider the merits of his claim that the Indiana courts misapplied their own law.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Biskup v. McCaughtry

3. “[h]armless-error review looks ... to the basis on which the jury actually rested its verdict. The inquiry, in other words, is not whether, in a trial that occurred without the error, a guilty verdict would surely have been rendered, but whether the guilty verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error. That must be so, because to hypothesize a guilty verdict that was never in fact rendered — no matter how inescapable the findings to support that verdict might be — would violate the jury-trial guarantee.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 72 F. Supp. 2d 980 - Morgan v. Krenke