State v. Harris’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A superseding indictment is an indictment obtained without the dismissal of a prior indictment. Where there has been no jeopardy on the first indictment, a grand jury may return a new indictment against an accused even though another indictment is pending.... Thus, the State may obtain a superseding indictment at any time prior to trial without dismissing the pending indictment and may then select the indictment under which to proceed at trial.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. State of Tennessee v. Kimberly Mangrum · State v. Lawson

2. “Given the high threshold that the trial court must meet before overruling the prosecutor’s decision to nolle prosequi an indictment, the broad discretion granted to the trial court in other circumstances, such as evidentiary rulings, is inapplicable here. In order for appellate courts to affirm that the trial court’s discretionary power to deny a motion to nolle prosequi is used only when the public interest is at stake, the trial court should provide a clear showing of its reasons for denying the motion and should ensure that the reasons are made part of the record. In this case, the trial court preserved no such showing on the record. The record does not reflect any manifest public interest sufficient to merit the trial court’s restraint of the State’s discretion; indeed, the trial court seems to have merely substituted its judgment for the State’s regarding which of the two indictments should be pursued. Such a unilateral check of pros-ecutorial discretion, without apparent or articulated justification, is beyond the trial court’s authority.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. State of Tennessee v. Melissa Ann Layman

3. “[I]t seems altogether proper to say that the phrase “by leave of court” in Rule 48(a) was intended to modify and condition the absolute power of the Executive, consistently with the Framer’s concept of Separation of Powers, by erecting a check on the abuse of Executive prerogatives. But this is not to say that the Rule was intended to confer on the Judiciary the power and authority to usurp or interfere with the good faith exercise of the Executive power to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. The rule was not promulgated to shift absolute power from the Executive to the Judicial Branch. Rather, it was intended as a power to check power. The Executive remains the absolute judge of whether a prosecution should be initiated and the first and presumptively the best judge of whether a pending prosecution should be terminated. The exercise of its discretion with respect to the termination of pending prosecutions should not be judicially disturbed unless clearly contrary to manifest public interest.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. State of Tennessee v. Melissa Ann Layman