McDonald v. Wilcox’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 held many times that the burden of obtaining a ruling is on the mov-ant and objections and questions left unresolved are waived and may not be relied upon on appeal. Richardson v. State, 292 Ark. 140 , 728 S.W.2d 189 (1987); Britton v. Floyd, 293 Ark. 397 , 738 S.W.2d 408 (1987); Williams v. State, 289 Ark. 69 , 709 S.W.2d 80 (1986). By appellant’s failure to include any record of a ruling, we are faced with essentially the same situation on review. We have no way of determining from the record that the trial court did in fact make a ruling, nor, assuming one was made, the nature or extent of the ruling. It may be that the trial court reserved a ruling until the evidence was more fully developed and that the issue was left unresolved. It may be that depending on the ruling, appellant waived any objection on appeal, because it was he who elicited proof of the convictions during his case in chief. The point is that with no record of a ruling we can only speculate as to whether a ruling was made and what the particulars of the ruling may have been. Obviously, for an accurate and fair review of the question, that information is critical.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. White v. Davis · Arkansas Lottery Commission v. Alpha Marketing