State v. Morales’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 28 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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Attached to the motion were affidavits from [Roberts and Lugo] in which they said that they “left [Wyatt] on the jury without looking at” her juror questionnaire. [Roberts] explained in his affidavit that he failed to examine Wyatt’s questionnaire before trial because he assumed that she would “autoipatically” be struck because of her status as an assistant district attorney but. that they “were confronted with several bad choices when [they] had to make the strikes” at the end of voir dire, and they made the choice to retain her on the jury—again, without first examining her questionnaire. He maintained that had he read Wyatt’s questionnaire, he would have exercised one of his peremptory challenges against her because of the “magnitude” of her connections to law enforcement (her father had been a police officer for 33 years, and she had “many, many friends” in law enforcement, according to her questionnaire), and because of the fact (also contained in Wyatt’s questionnaire) “that she was repeatedly the victim of numerous crimes (including sex crimes)[.]” Both attorneys said in their affidavits that their failure to strike Wyatt had amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Morales v. Thaler

2. “One of the prospective jurors ... was Robyn Wyatt, who was a prosecutor in the El Paso County District Attorney’s Office, the same office that was prosecuting [Morales]. During voir dire, Wyatt maintained without contradiction that she could be fair and impartial despite her employment and her acquaintance with the State’s prosecutors, investigators, law enforcement personnel, the judge, and defense counsel. Additionally, Wyatt stated that she had not worked on [Morales’s] case. [Morales], however, challenged Wyatt for cause, arguing that she was an actual party to the case because she was a member of the district attorney’s office. The trial judge denied [Morales’s] challenge, noting that Wyatt was not shown to be biased and that [Texas law] does not make her subject to a challenge for cause based solely upon her occupation as an assistant district attorney.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Morales v. Thaler

3. “[Roberts] indicated to me that it was a decision on their part to leave [Wyatt] on the jury. There were certain factors that were taken into account. He indicated ... that there was a male juror who was college-educated from Louisiana and was a Republican, and that was a person that they felt they needed to strike more than Robyn Wyatt, and that Ms. Wyatt was a prosecutor that they had dealt with in the office who was as fair a prosecutor as they’ve ever dealt with, and that they felt comfortable with her being a juror in this case because of their working relationship with her as a prosecutor.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Morales v. Thaler