State v. Sinclair’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
271 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 271 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably State v. Robinson (1993), State v. Prioleau (1995)
271 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Malloy v. Hogan · State v. Evans · CPC International Inc. v. Dimmitt Agri Industries, Inc. · Braunfeld v. Gibbons · Carter v. Kentucky
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 271 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Indubitably, the legislature has the power to implement constitutional rights in a manner that is more stringent than the constitution itself provides. In enacting § 54-84(b), the legislature has done so. While the constitutional right to a 'no adverse inference' charge depends upon the defendant's request of such a charge, the statutory right is conferred upon the defendant unconditionally, in the absence of his request that the charge not be given. It would be entirely reasonable to conclude that the principle of harmless error may be inconsistent with the unconditional language of the statute that the legislature has enacted for the protection of the right not to testify.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Ruocco“arising out of failure to give a 'no adverse inference' instruction, we expressly reserved the question whether noncompliance with so central an aspect of the privilege against self-incrimination could ever be considered harmless error.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Ruocco“is of constitutional dimension, [t]he applicable test requires the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that, from the viewpoint of the charge as a whole, there is no reasonable possibility that the jury was misled.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Ruocco
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.