Bluitt v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

57 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 57 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The criminal record of the defendant is not grouped with extraneous offenses, and therefore we presume that the legislature did not intend to require the same burden of proof that it attached to extraneous, unadjudicated offenses. While the prior convictions must be properly proved, to require that prior convictions be re-proved beyond a reasonable doubt would be an absurd result, as the very fact of conviction is evidence that the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt has already been met in a prior proceeding. The critical issue is that testing of the proof. If an offense has been subject to such scrutiny and the burden of proof has been met, regardless of whether the judicial proceeding concluded with a final conviction, it is part of a defendant’s criminal record, and Art. 37.03, § 3, does not require further proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Graves v. State · Moore v. State

2. “Our case law is clear that when there is jury-charge error, whether objected to or not objected to, the standard for assessing harm is controlled by Almanza .”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Oursbourn v. State · Rios v. State

3. “The failure to preserve jury-charge error is not a bar to appellate review, but rather it establishes the degree of harm necessary for reversal. Because the appellant did not object to the charge, the error does not result in reversal “unless it was so egregious and created such harm that appellant was denied a fair trial.” To determine “egregious harm,” a reviewing court examines “the entire jury charge, the state of the evidence, including the contested issues and weight of the probative evidence, the arguments of counsel, and any other relevant information revealed by the record of the trial as a whole.” The appellant must have suffered actual, rather than theoretical, harm. “Errors that result in egregious harm are those that affect ‘the very basis of the case,’ ‘deprive the defendant of a valuable right,’ or ‘vitally affect a defensive theory.’ ””

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