164 Ill. 2d 322 - People v. Harris’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 28 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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Essie Taylor. We turn next to Essie Taylor, the second of the three prospective jurors whose exclusion from the jury is at issue in this appeal. Taylor stated during voir dire that she lived on the southeast side of Chicago, near 79th Street. She worked as a licensed practical nurse at a hospital, and she had two children, aged 12 and 15. After high school Taylor had worked at Kresge’s while she was receiving her nurse’s training. None of her close friends were police officers. Neither Taylor nor any of her close family members had ever been the victim of a crime or had been accused of committing a crime. At the original Batson hearing, the prosecutor explained that he challenged Taylor because he was not sure what Taylor’s husband did for a living, because she lived relatively close to the crime scene, and because he wanted to leave room on the jury for other, more favorable members of the venire. At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge sustained the State’s explanation on the ground that Taylor lived near the defendant’s residence. In Harris I , this court rejected the trial judge’s finding as erroneous, noting that the prosecutor, in his explanation for the challenge to Taylor, had made no reference to the location of the defendant’s home. (Harris, 129 Ill.2d at 186 , 135 Ill.Dec. 861 , 544 N.E.2d 357 .) On remand, the trial judge again upheld the State’s explanation of its challenge to Taylor, citing all three reasons mentioned by the prosecutor at the earlier hearing”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 681 F. Supp. 2d 937 - United States Ex Rel. Harris v. Shaw

2. “Applying these principles to the case at bar, we are satisfied that the trial judge’s determination that the State provided a race-neutral explanation for its decision to exercise a peremptory challenge against Milton Pickett is not clearly erroneous. The prosecutor explained that one of his concerns was that he did not have more information about Pickett’s friendship with the council member, or about his political views. Contrary to the defendant’s argument, there is no requirement that a court reject a prosecutor’s explanation simply because it rests in part on a lack of knowledge. As we have stated, determining whether the State has properly provided a race-neutral explanation for the exclusion of a particular juror will primarily be a question of credibility; although a prosecutor’s complaint that he lacks information regarding a juror might warrant extra caution on the part of the trial judge and reviewing court, it is not automatically invalid. Our earlier opinion in this case counseled that an explanation based on a lack of knowledge deserves close scrutiny, yet the court did not suggest that such an explanation may never stand. (See Harris [I], 129 Ill.2d at 188 , 135 Ill.Dec. 861 , 544 N.E.2d 357 [, 386].) Although inquiry by the State could have clarified some of the matters left uncertain by the voir dire, we cannot say that the failure of the prosecution to propose additional questions regarding Pickett’s friend fatally undermines its proffered explanation for the”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 681 F. Supp. 2d 937 - United States Ex Rel. Harris v. Shaw

3. “At the conclusion of the Batson hearing, the trial judge inadvertently failed to make a finding regarding the State’s exclusion of Simmons. On remand from this court’s opinion in Harris I (see Harris, 129 Ill.2d at 187-88 , 135 Ill.Dec. 861 , 544 N.E.2d 357 ), the judge found no discriminatory intent in the State’s decision to remove Simmons from the jury. The judge disagreed with the prosecutor’s view that Simmons had only tenu ous ties to the community, noting her education and long-term employment in Chicago, but sustained the challenge on other grounds cited by the prosecutor. The trial judge believed that the four white persons selected as the jury’s second panel, at the same time Simmons was excused from service, possessed a number of characteristics that would appeal to the prosecution. Richard Gray, who became the jury foreman, was a college graduate and had a master’s degree in business; he worked as a financial analyst for the State of Indiana. Michael Dolan had been employed as a truck driver for 13 years. Lois Gregg was a dental assistant; she had three children in their thirties, and her husband taught at a university in the Chicago area. Finally, Helen Karwowski was retired; her husband had been a pharmacist and had owned his own drugstore. Karwowski has worked at the drugstore and also as an employment counselor, and she had raised four children. The judge described this panel of four as a “prosecutor’s dream.” Comparing Simmons with these jurors, the judge sta”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 681 F. Supp. 2d 937 - United States Ex Rel. Harris v. Shaw