State v. White’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

41 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 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We recognize, of course, that the courts are the guardians of the rights guaranteed to the people by the Constitution; but if a right is infringed, the remedy must be an appropriate one and must be a natural consequence of the infringement of the right. For example, if an accused is compelled to confess to a crime, the remedy for this wrong is to bar the admission of the confession into evidence against him. Again, if the evidence is obtained through an illegal search warrant, the remedy for this violation of the accused’s right to be protected against unreasonable search is to prohibit the admission on his trial of the evidence thus illegally obtained. We cannot agree with counsel for the accused in the instant case that any wrong done the accused by a perhaps unreasonably lengthy imprisonment without the filing of a charge has as its remedy the dismissal of the entire prosecution against him. The interests of our society will not permit this serious crime for which the appellant has been sentenced to serve seven years at hard labor to be “wiped out” because he was detained in jail five months between his arrest and the filing of the information.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 677 So. 2d 511 - State v. Davis

2. “Whether [confessions are] voluntarily made or not, we hold, is a question of law, to be determined by the Court from the facts, as a condition precedent to their admission. Having been declared competent and admissible, they are before the jury for consideration. The jury have no authority to reject them as incompetent. But the jury are the sole judges of the truth and weight to be given confessions, as they are of any other fact. In weighing the confessions, the jury must take into consideration all the circumstances surrounding them, and under which they were made, including those under which the Court declared, as matter of law, they were voluntary. In weighing confessions, the jury necessarily consider those facts upon which their admissibility, as having been voluntarily made, depends. * * * The Court passes upon the facts merely for the purpose of determining their competency and admissibility. The jury pass upon the same facts, and in connection with other facts, if there are other facts, in determining whether the confessions are true, and entitled to any, and how much weight. * * *”

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

3. ““We have him coming into a state of immediate and unexplained — other than that he robbed the old man — prosperity, from a few dollars to several hundred dollars . . .” “The law says that a person who is in the unexplained possession of property recently stolen in a robbery is presumed to have committed the robbery. The law goes further, and consistent along with those two presumptions, and it is this. A party who is found in the unexplained possession . . .””

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