State v. Davis’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 35 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. “The argument is thus made that Joseph’s pre-trial statement that the de fendant Davis did not draw his gun until after Reverend Dyer and Davis began fighting is more consistent with the defendant’s trial testimony than with the Dyers’ trial version. From this inconsistency, counsel skillfully argues that the accused was deprived of a cross-examination weapon which might have caused the jury to disbelieve Joseph’s further trial testimony that he actually saw the defendant aiming the gun at James before James was shot. (Joseph’s pre-trial version is identical as to this fact.) “We do not so hold,” the court continued. The seeming inconsistency between Joseph’s pre-trial statement and his trial testimony might possibly be explained as a matter of imperfect articulation trying to describe the moment when Joseph observed the gun being aimed at his brother. Assuming not, nevertheless, in essential outline the pre-trial testimony does not differ from the trial testimony of Joseph and the other witnesses: that the Dyers were unarmed, that the accused pulled his gun out of his pocket while arguing with Reverend Dyer, and that the Dyers’ only object was to disarm him and turn him over to the police. For a similar reason, we also reject the argument that the failure earlier to disclose the absent John Dyer’s pre-trial statement was prejudicial, as such statement might have afforded grounds for continuance. We do not construe the statement, as does the defendant, as tending to support th”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 350 F. Supp. 958 - Davis v. Heyd

2. “The statements are essentially the same as the trial testimony of Reverend Dyer and his son Joseph; that, after Reverend Dyer remonstrated with him (“you could go to jail for carrying a gun and striking”), then the defendant Davis pulled a gun — following which, Reverend Dyer, joined then by his three boys, scuffled to disarm him of the gun. The pre-trial statements of Reverend Dyer and John are almost identical to this trial version. . . . The pre-trial statement of Joseph says, however, that, after his father went to the door to talk to Davis, he (Joseph) saw his father and Davis tussling, and that he and his brothers ran into the house and, “At this time I saw Linroy coming out of his pocket with a gun. ...” State v. Davis, 1971, 259 La. 35 , 249 So.2d 193, 195 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 350 F. Supp. 958 - Davis v. Heyd

3. “"In the discipline of his court, the trial judge is vested with a sound discretion to stop the prolonged, unnecessary and irrelevant examination of a witness, whether such examination be direct or cross, and even though no objection be urged by counsel."”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 297 So. 2d 433 - State v. LeBlanc