State v. Mitchell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

39 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 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Although [having the court reporter note the race of every potential juror] might have preserved a proper record from which an appellate court could determine if any potential jurors were challenged solely on the basis of race, we find it inappropriate. To have a court reporter note the race of every potential juror examined would require a reporter alone to make that determination without the benefit of questioning by counsel or any other evidence that might tend to establish the prospective juror’s race. The court reporter, however, is in no better position to determine the race of each prospective juror than the defendant, the court, or counsel. An individual’s race is not always easily discernible, and the potential for error by a court reporter acting alone is great. As the trial court noted, “[The clerk] might note the race as being one race and in fact that person is another race. . . . [M]y observation has been you can look at some people and you cannot really tell what race they are.” The approach suggested by the defendant would denigrate the task of preventing peremptory challenges of jurors on the basis of race to the reporter’s “subjective impressions as to what race they spring from.” See Batson [v. Kentucky], 476 U.S. [79,] 130 n.10, 90 L. Ed. 2d [69,] 109 n.10 (Burger, C.J., dissenting). If a defendant in cases such as this believes a prospective juror to be of a particular race, he can bring that fact to the trial court’s attention and ensure that it is made ”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 262 N.C. App. 89 - State v. Bennett · State v. Payne

2. “In Eury it was unnecessary to decide whether such error was prejudicial per se, because on the specific facts before us we concluded that “one can only speculate as to how the jury would have reacted had defendant not been deprived of her substantial right to have both counsel make closing argument.” [State v. Eury,) 317 N.C. at 517, 346 S.E.2d at 450 . We now conclude that these concerns expressed in Eury are common to all cases in which defendants are deprived of their right to have all of their counsel address the jury during each argument that they are entitled to make at the conclusion of either phase of a capital case. Therefore, we hold that the trial court’s refusal to permit both counsel to address the jury during the' defendant’s final arguments constituted prejudicial error per se in both the guilt-innocence and sentencing phases.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Williams · State v. Campbell

3. “[I]n capital felonies, the time of argument of counsel may not be limited otherwise than by consent, except that the court may limit the number of those who may address the jury to three counsel on each side.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Barrow · State v. Campbell