Stephens v. Hall’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 federal appellate · 9 district · 2 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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Counsel knew about Jackson’s deferred sentence. Any competent attorney would have discerned the legal connection between Jackson’s conduct in this case and the conditions sufficient to trigger acceleration of the deferred sentence. Quite apart from the tacit quid pro quo assurances, Jackson’s mere exposure to this punitive threat was pertinent to the jury’s assessment of his motivation for testifying. Like a pending criminal charge or possible probation violation, this threat was “relevant to show pro-government bias on the part of the testifying witness, on the theory that the witness might tailor [his] testimony to please the prosecutor.” Yet counsel erroneously confessed a pretrial motion in limine preventing the defense “from mentioning, referring to, inferring or in any way informing the jury” about Jackson’s deferred sentence.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Douglas v. Workman

2. “In order to safeguard the defendant’s rights under the Confrontation Clause, we have held that the trial judge may not so restrict cross-examination as to deprive the defendant of the constitutionally required threshold level of inquiry, and must give the accused sufficient leeway to establish a reasonably complete picture of the witness’s veracity, bias, and motivation. * * * [T]he Confrontation Clause guarantees an opportunity for effective cross-examination, not cross-examination that is effective in whatever way, and to whatever extent, the defense might wish.”

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

3. “Although we have noted that 'a significant factor weighing in favor of finding prejudice is the absence of any corroborating evidence other than the testimony of the witness whom defense counsel failed to impeach,' here, defense counsel did not fail to impeach [the victim-witness].”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Quintanilla v. Marchilli