People v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The statement in Friend and the other cases that a judge `may express his opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant' should be understood as meaning that proper comments of the judge as to evidence are not erroneous merely because the jury might conceivably understand such comments as reflecting his opinion as to guilt or innocence, and the quoted language should not be understood as warranting general statements as to guilt or innocence where the evidentiary basis for the comment is not explained to the jury.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Flores

2. “right and duty to exercise the same independence of judgment in weighing the judge's comment on the evidence as you are entitled to exercise in weighing the testimony of the witnesses....”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Flores

3. “The vice of such comment[s] was that the judge effectively took the issue of defendant's credibility away from the jury.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Flores