United States v. Jackson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate ·

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

1. “[the judge] did not try the Government’s case or improperly interject himself into the trial proceedings. While the district court may have used sharp language in rejecting some of attorney Gibson’s objections, the court’s rulings in most of the questioned instances fell within the court’s discretion under the Federal Rules of Evidence. See United States v. Lueth, 807 F.2d 719, 729 (8th Cir.1986). Further, the court’s rulings on substance did not amount to plain error. We also note that a majority of the disputes between counsel and the court occurred outside of the jury’s hearing. Moreover, the judge specially instructed the jury during the course of the trial, after the tenor of the interactions apparently had escalated, that his comments and any disputes between counsel and the court did not reflect on the guilt or innocence of the parties and could not be so considered by the jury. See ante, at 400-401 n. 4. We cannot say on this record that Donaldson was deprived of a fair trial. United States v. Scott, 26 F.3d 1458, 1465 (8th Cir.1994), [cert. denied sub nom. Richard v. United States, 513 U.S. 1019 , 115 S.Ct. 584 , 130 L.Ed.2d 498 (1994) ]. Accordingly, Donaldson’s claim [of grounds for reversal of conviction] must fail.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Schultz v. Amick

2. “[The inappropriate judicial interventions were designed] to clarify government testimony, to help government counsel, to indicate to government counsel when he should or should not make objections, to instruct government counsel on how to make his evidence more intelligible, to suggest to him when he should stop the examination of a witness, to indicate to him what he should write on a blackboard in order to illustrate a point to the jury, and the like. In addition, on numerous occasions the court took over the questioning of government witnesses in order to make sure that the somewhat complicated facts of this ease were clearly explained.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Schultz v. Amick