State v. Schlittenhardt’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

19 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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““. . . has nothing to do with the principle that, under some conditions, prior convictions can be introduced in evidence. It is true that they may be. However, there is no such attempt here, but merely the display, and reference to in evidence, of some book called ‘Known Criminals’, which is used with reference to a defendant. This is comparable to the techniques used in the Middle Ages when criminals were branded with a certain brand to correspond to the nature of their past crimes. “Since in this case the defendant did not take the witness stand, the State was deprived of the right to cross-examine him concerning past criminal convictions.””

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

2. ““The trial judge called it prejudicial in the record. . . . The trial judge did make an effort to correct this situation by a curative statement to the jury, and later by a statement contained in the instructions. However, in the light of practical courtroom atmosphere in a criminal case, as distinguished from esoteric theory, not only did prejudice result to the defendant, but the effect of such prejudice was not cured by what the court said in admonishing the jury and later in its instructions. It would require extreme naivete to hold otherwise.””

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