3 Cal. 3d 192 - In Re Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate · 161 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 173 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Counsel must prepare a brief to assist the court in understanding the facts and the legal issues in the case. The brief must set forth a statement of the facts with citations to the transcript, discuss the legal issues with citations of appropriate authority, and argue all issues that are arguable. Moreover, counsel serves both the court and his client by advocating changes in the law if argument can be made supporting change. * * * a * * * Judged by the foregoing criteria, representation by the appointed counsel for petitioner before the Court of Appeal was demonstrably inadequate. Indeed, petitioner would have fared better had his attorney withdrawn in favor of a pro se brief from petitioner, despite petitioner’s acknowledged legal ineptitude. In a case bristling with arguable claims of error, petitioner’s counsel filed an opening brief consisting of a 20-page recitation of the facts and a one-page argument. * * * Of course, an appellate counsel is not to be held responsible for an actual frivolous appeal by his client, and we do not hold that Anders [v. California, 386 U.S. 738 , 87 S.Ct. 1396 , 18 L.Ed.2d 493 (1967) ] and Feggans require the advocate to contrive arguable issues. But in the instant action, each of the counts on which petitioner was convicted was potentially vulnerable to legitimate and provocative appellate contentions that should have been manifest to an alert and responsive attorney.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Engberg v. Meyer