Westcom v. Meunier’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 10 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “If [this Court] were to accept the actual prejudice rule, the trial court’s errors would become unreviewable because the focus of the appellate inquiry would not be on the court’s error, but on the qualifications of the juror subject to the lost peremptory challenge. The whole purpose of peremptory challenges is to allow each party an opportunity to dismiss a fixed number of jurors without cause or explanation. The faulty denial of that opportunity creates prejudice that should need no elucidation.”

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

2. “If [this Court] were to accept the actual prejudice rule, the trial court’s errors would become unreviewable because the focus of the appellate inquiry would not be on the court's error, but on the qualifications of the juror subject to the lost peremptory challenge. The whole purpose of peremptoiy challenges is to allow each party an opportunity to dismiss a fixed number of jurors without cause or explanation. The faulty denial of that opportunity creates prejudice that should need no elucidation.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 158 Md. App. 519 - Whitney v. State