Wesbrook v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 398 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 403 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “If there is a reasonable likelihood that the error materially affected the jury’s deliberations, then the error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. We must be able to conclude from the record that the erroneously admitted evidence was, in fact, harmless as to punishment beyond a reasonable doubt. An appellate court should not focus on the propriety of the outcome of the trial. Instead, the appellate court should calculate as much as possible the probable impact of the error on the jury in light of the existence of other evidence. While the most significant concern must be the error and its effects, the presence of overwhelming evidence supporting the finding in question can be a factor in the evaluation of harmless error. If an appellate court rules that an error is harmless, it is in essence asserting the nature of the error is such that it could not have affected the jury. Stated in an interrogatory context, a reviewing court asks if there was a reasonable possibility that the error, either alone or in context, moved the jury from a state of nonper-suasion to one of persuasion as to the issue in question.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Proenza v. State · Wappler v. State

2. “The jury is the exclusive judge of the credibility of witnesses and of the weight to be given testimony, and it is also the exclusive province of the jury to reconcile conflicts in the evidence.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Rhoten v. State · Briseno v. State

3. “To support a finding of future dangerousness ..., prosecutors relied on the facts of the crime itself, the unadjudicated extraneous solicitation offense, and several bad acts committed by appellant. Aside from evidence of a horrific killing spree that left five people dead, jurors heard from Phillip Jones, who, before he became an agent for law enforcement, independently discovered appellant’s efforts to solicit the murders of two individuals. Jones’ testimony about these particular facts was free from any Sixth Amendment concerns. The jury, at that point, validly possessed a critical indicator of future dangerousness: that appellant, despite his incarceration for a brutal multiple homicide, was willing to arrange and condone further murders, this time by proxy. Any additional, inadmissible testimony of appellant’s hopes to expand his list of desired targets was of minimal consequence. In other words, because the jury possessed details of both the crime itself and the solicitation to murder, there is no reasonable likelihood that the inadmissible portion of Jones’ testimony, considered either alone or in context, moved the jury from a state of nonpersuasion to persuasion regarding the issue of future dangerousness.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Wesbrook v. Thaler