State v. Baker’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““We have no doubt that it is common practice in this State, when the jury has deliberated for a considerable time, for the Judge to inquire how they stand numerically, without indicating what party or result they favor, for the purpose of ascertaining whether there is a reasonable probability of an agreement. Authorities differ as to the propriety of such an inquiry but we think the real question is whether there was any coercion of the jury in connection with it. See Annotation on Coercion, 85 A.L.R. 1420 , 1450; 53 Am.Jur. 673, Secs. 954-955; 23 C.J.S., Criminal Law, § 1380, p. 1058. Such an inquiry has been barred in the federal courts by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Brasfield v. United States, 272 U.S. 448 , 47 S.Ct. 135 , 71 L.Ed. 345 , which held ‘that the inquiry itself should be regarded as ground for reversal’, saying that ‘in general its tendency is coercive.’ However, our view is that such an inquiry is not coercive per se but that it must be determined from the record of what is said and done at the time whether or not there is any indication of coercion.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Sanders