Barnes v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 77 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 81 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[Indiana law] provides that: the following shall be good causes for challenge to any person called as a juror in any criminal trial: Eleventh. That he is biased or prejudiced for or against the defendant. Fourteenth. That he has a personal interest in the result of the trial. In response to the Motion to Correct Errors the State submitted affidavits which indicated that [the prosecutor’s representative] was not aware at the time of trial of [a familial relationship to a juror]. It appears that the family of the juror’s wife was quite large and the relationships among distant relatives tenuous. The prosecutor’s representative stated he had not seen or heard from his second cousin in eleven years. Nevertheless, the possibility of bias existed. If the juror lied, his misconduct was ground for a new trial. If the answer was inaccurate, it prevented the defendant from investigating a possible source of future bias in favor of the prosecution. Even though the juror may not have been aware at the time of the voir dire question of his relationship, if at any time prior to the verdict he discovered such a fact[,] the possibility of bias existed. In such a situation the defendant would need to have the opportunity to probe the juror and, if he chose, to challenge for cause. Of course, if throughout the trial the juror never knew of the relationship there would be no error since the relationship could not have influenced his decision.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Lloyd J. Diehl v. Larry J. Clemons · Haak v. State