Langley v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

70 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 70 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"A juror who states on voir dire that he would give more credit to the testimony of police officers than to other persons has prejudged an issue of credibility in the case. Regardless of his efforts to be impartial, a part of his method for resolving controverted issues will be to give greater weight to the version of the prosecution, largely because of the official status of the witness. The argument by the State that police officers are entitled to greater credibility because they have less interest in the outcome of the case is not sufficient to overcome such an objection. "As Judge Horney pointed out for the Court in Casey v. Roman Catholic Arch., 217 Md. 595, 607 , 143 A.2d 627 , `a party is entitled to a jury free of all disqualifying bias or prejudice without exception, and not merely a jury free of bias or prejudice of a general or abstract nature.' Accordingly, we hold that in a case such as this, where a principal part of the State's evidence is testimony of a police officer diametrically opposed to that of a defendant, it is prejudicial error to fail to propound a question such as that requested in this case. However, in the words of Brown , we suggest that `the phrasing of the court's inquiry should include whether any juror would tend to give either more or less credence [merely] because of the occupation or category of the prospective witness.'"”

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Thomas v. State · Moore v. State

2. “"`the broad rule [is] that any circumstances which may reasonably be regarded as rendering a person unfitted for jury service may be made the subject of questions and a challenge for cause. In other words, an examination of a prospective juror on his voir dire is proper as long as it is conducted strictly within the right to discover the state of mind of the juror in respect to the matter in hand or any collateral matter reasonably liable to unduly influence him.'"”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Moore v. State · Dingle v. State

3. “"Is there anyone here who would give more credit to the testimony of a police officer over that of a civilian, merely because of this status as a police officer?"”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Moore v. State · 42 Md. App. 720 - McFadden v. State