214 W. Va. 471 - State v. Sprague’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “As the appellant did not testify, no matter what the intention of the prosecutor was, the prosecutor's comments necessarily served to accentuate and highlight the fact that the appellant sat silently without taking the stand, and no matter how harmless the intent, the remarks plainly amount to comment on the appellant's choice not to testify.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 220 W. Va. 735 - State v. Murray · 222 W. Va. 139 - State v. KEESECKER

2. “Now there's been a lot of talk and I do want to talk to you about venue. The Defendant, as you have noted, as you've seen from this trial, has not contradicted any of the State's evidence or any of the State's testimony basically about the events that occurred at Sta[ ]dard Hall.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 220 W. Va. 735 - State v. Murray · 222 W. Va. 139 - State v. KEESECKER

3. “The general rule formulated for ascertaining whether a prosecutor's comment is an impermissible reference, direct or oblique, to the silence of the accused is whether the language used was manifestly intended to be, or was of such character that the jury would naturally and necessarily take it to be a reminder that the defendant did not testify.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 222 W. Va. 139 - State v. KEESECKER