Nance v. Rees’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 district · 20 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[t]he [Delaware] Constitution is express that “trial by jury shall be as heretofore,” plainly intending to secure both the form and the substance, the trial and the constitution of the jury. [t]he framers of the [Delaware] Constitution of 1776 were aware of that importance, when they declared (1 Del.Laws, Appendix 81) it to be a fundamental rule “that trial by jury of facts where they arise is one of the greatest securities of the lives, liberties and estates of the people.” The provision in the present Constitution is stronger and more positive, “Trials by jury shall be as heretofore.” A comparison of the [Delaware] Constitution or System of Government and Declaration of Rights of 1776 with the present Constitution will convince any one, if a doubt exists on the subject, that the Convention of 1792 had the old Constitution before them and made it in fact the groundwork of their labors; for many of its most important provisions are inserted in the present Constitution without the slightest variation even of the expressions, while other principles of the old system are adopted in language differing but little in its terms, and bearing precisely the same purport. The fourteenth section of the Declaration of Rights is made the seventh section of first article of the present [Delaware] Constitution, with this important exception, that it is not provided in the latter, as in the former, that no person shall be found guilty without the unanimous consent of an impartial jury. But ar”

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

2. ““(a) A special jury for the trial of a cause, shall be ordered by the Court upon the application of either party. (b) The party applying for the special jury under this section shall give due notice to the opposite party, and to the Prothonotary, of the time and place of striking such jury. At such time and place the Prothonotary, or his deputy, or if the Prothonotary is not indifferent between the parties, then 2 proper persons indifferent between the parties, appointed by the Superior Court, shall attend with a list of 48 indifferent and judicious citizens of the county, qualified to serve as jurors, showing their names and places of abode. (c) The party applying for the special jury under this section, his agent or attorney, shall first strike out one of the names, and then the opposite party, his agent or attorney, shall strike out another; and so on, until each shall have struck out 12. If the opposite party, or any person on his behalf, shall not attend, or shall refuse to strike, the Prothonotary or his deputy, or the persons appointed to strike the jury, as the case may be, shall strike for the party not attending, or refusing to strike. (d)After each party shall have struck 12 names under this section, the remaining 24 persons on the list shall be the jury to be returned for the cause. The Pro-thonotary, or his deputy, or the persons appointed to strike the jury, as the case may be, shall thereupon deliver to the sheriff a certified list of the names of such persons,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Haas v. United Technologies Corp.

3. ““Since the matter of taxing the costs lies in the discretion of the trial court, it is obvious that there must be some reason to impel the court to exercise its discretion in that respect. We can think of no reason for so doing except that the particular cause is of such complexity as to make desirable the striking of a special jury which, presumably, would be better able to deal with complex issues of fact. As a practical matter, we would suppose that only in suits involving breach of contract with elaborate proof of complex factual situations would the court’s discretion be moved to award the costs to the winning party.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Stevenson v. Henning