Smith v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 federal appellate · 1 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “But there is a second [that is, after the preliminary inquiry] phase to this determination. Defendant has a right to have the jury pass upon the question of whether the admissions made by him were coerced or were made freely. The jury should be instructed that, unless they find beyond a reasonable doubt that the confession was freely and voluntarily made, they should not give any consideration to the admissions in weighing guilt or innocence of defendant. It is true that the failure to give such an instruction and submit this question to the jury would not be noted by us if the matter had not been called to the attention of the trial court and exception taken to the failure. 14 "The situation in the case was such that these two failures were vital. The jury had before it admissions of defendant and had not been admonished that there was any question of fact for them to consider in that connection. * * *”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Stevenson v. Boles

2. ““This Court is of opinion that these two failures of the court to instruct when the matter was called to its attention constitute, under the situation in this case, reversible error.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ing v. United States