State v. Meeks’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[Attorneys] remain officers of the court, obligated to assist the judicial effort to determine whether a defendant is competent to proceed.... Therefore, in a very important sense, counsel cooperate in a court's effort to make one of the justice system's most fundamental findings — whether a defendant understands the proceedings and can assist in the defense. And in a closely related way, counsel cooperate in the court's continuing effort to determine whether a defendant needs mental health assistance, and possibly medication, in order to function in a legal setting. Thus, despite the intensity and competing interests of the adversarial setting, counsel must set aside strategic considerations and candidly assist the court's effort to determine whether a defendant is competent to proceed. And just as defense counsel must be candid in expressing an opinion about a client's competency, courts, in turn, should understand that counsel's, opinion derives, in substantial part, from confidential conversations with the client. Therefore, careful courts, under most circumstances, will give due weight to counsel's opinion without testing it with questions likely to expose the details of client conversations and other privileged communications. These principles logically apply not only to a defendant's trial counsel, but to prior counsel as well.... Here, the court did not improperly consider privileged communications. Explicitly, [the attorney] did not relate any of her conversations wi”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. State v. Meeks

2. “[S]he testified that if there was any scintilla of doubt in her mind about a person's competency she would have brought that to my attention [in the prior cases].... I have really no doubt in my mind that if the defendant's cognitive limitations were such ... [given her] experience and commitment, that if it had come to her notice, it would have been brought to my attention; and she did not. 6”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. State v. Meeks

3. “Courts generally permit an attorney to testify to the client's competency to stand trial when the testimony does not relate to confidential communications with the client, but instead relates to the attorney's observations of the client during the time of the communication.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. State v. Meeks