State v. Cushard’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[t]he purpose of the structural error doctrine is to ensure insistence on certain basic, constitutional guarantees that should define the framework of any criminal trial. Thus, the defining feature of structural error is that it affect[s] the framework within which the trial proceeds, rather than being simply an error in the trial process itself.... For the same reason, a structural error def[ies] analysis by harmless error standards.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 188 Conn. App. 813 - State v. Simmons

2. “[T]o determine if the error in the present case was structural, we must perform an initial review of the record to determine whether the [violation] had any impact on the subsequent trial that irretrievably eroded its fundamental fairness .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 188 Conn. App. 813 - State v. Simmons

3. “These so-called structural errors tend to by their very nature cast so much doubt on the fairness of the trial process that, as a matter of law, they can never be considered harmless.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 188 Conn. App. 813 - State v. Simmons