Daughtry v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[a] fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel's challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel's perspective at the time. There are countless ways to provide effective assistance in any given case. Even the best criminal defense attorneys would not defend a particular client in the same way. To these ends, the law recognizes a "strong presumption" that counsel performed reasonably, and the defendant bears the burden of overcoming this presumption. To carry that burden, the defendant must show that no reasonable lawyer would have done what his lawyer did, or would have failed to do what his lawyer did not, or put another way, that his lawyer made errors so serious that he was not functioning as the counsel guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 350 Ga. App. 233 - Guerrero-Moya v. State

2. “When assessing prejudice, a court must consider the totality of the evidence before the judge or jury. A verdict or conclusion only weakly supported by the record is more likely to have been affected by errors than one with overwhelming record support. Moreover, in weighing prejudice, [a defendant] is entitled to relief if any one error of trial counsel shows that there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been more favorable to him or if the collective prejudice from all of trial counsel’s deficiencies meets that standard.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 342 Ga. App. 742 - Mallery v. the State

3. “Appellant does not point to any case holding that this charge is incorrect, and it appears that neither this Court nor the Court of Appeals has held that such a charge is error. In fact, the Court of Appeals has approved of the charge. See Williams v. State, 171 Ga. App. 934 (3) ( 321 SE2d 429 ) (1984).”

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