Graves v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Petitioner also alleges that the trial judge’s comments on credibility about a defense witness denied him an impartial jury and violated his due process rights. Again, the PCR judge found this issue to be without merit. At the PCR hearing, petitioner alleged that the trial judge’s threats of perjury to a witness prejudiced him. Petitioner argues that the trial judge’s comments amounted to comments on the credibility of a witness. During cross-examination, the trial judge reminded the witness: “You are under oath subject to perjury. I need to warn you, so you must answer the questions truthfully.” Further, he stated: “The jury can hear. They can find out whether or not you are straightforward or not. Those are matters for the jury.” Petitioner argues that this Court should adopt the holding of the North Carolina case of State v. Rhodes, 290 N.C. 16 , 224 S.E.2d 631 (1976), where the court held that any intimation by the judge in the jury’s presence that a witness had committed perjury would be reversible error. Rhodes , however, is distinguishable from the present case. In Rhodes , the trial judge made a long statement regarding the witness’ testimony and he clearly thought she had committed perjury. In Rhodes , the North Carolina Supreme Court stated that a judge may caution a witness regarding perjury outside of the jury’s presence. However, the court cautioned that any intimation that a witness had committed perjury in the jury’s presence is reversible error. In Rhodes , th”

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