State v. Lanphear’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In Chapman [v. State of California, 386 U.S. 18 , 87 S.Ct. 824 , 17 L.Ed.2d 705 ] petitioners urged the Court to hold that all federal constitutional errors regardless of facts and circumstances must always be deemed harmful. The majority declined to adopt such a rule and concluded ‘there may be some constitutional errors which in the setting of a particular case are so unimportant and insignificant that they may, consistent with the Federal Constitution, be deemed harmless, not requiring the automatic reversal of the conviction.’ 386 U.S. at 21-22 , 87 S.Ct. at 827 , 17 L.Ed.2d at 709 . “ * * * [BJefore a constitutional error can be held harmless the court must be able to declare a belief it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.””

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