Hamm v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

62 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 62 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In summation, the trial court erred in allowing the transcription of the appellant’s confession to be read into evidence. This does not mean, however, that upon retrial the trial court cannot allow oral testimony about the confession into evidence. It is the transcription itself which was admitted in violation of the rules of criminal procedure”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Threadgill v. State · Gamble v. State

2. “Some police statements are so clearly false promises of rewards that we do not find it necessary to look beyond the statement and the police action to decide that the confession was involuntary. Examples of such statements are found in Freeman v. State, 258 Ark. 617 , 527 S.W.2d 909 (1975), in which the prosecutor told a defendant, who later received a life sentence, that a confession "would not result in more than 21 years incarceration," and in Teas v. State, 266 Ark. 572 , 587 S.W.2d 28 (1979), in which the defendant received the maximum sentence after being promised a recommendation of leniency and perhaps even dismissal of the charge. Such false promises of rewards constitute prosecutorial misconduct, and the confessions induced by them are to be automatically excluded.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 62 Ark. App. 230 - Knight v. State

3. “We are further persuaded that appellant was not only entitled to the written transcription prepared by the state from the recorded statements, but appellant was entitled to discover the tapes not only because the tapes represented the best evidence, but without the tapes, appellant had no way of comparing the transcription in order to determine if the transcription was a correct reproduction of the recordings. Indeed, the statement as well as the tapes would have been most helpful to appellant in his cross-examination of state’s witnesses.”

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