Hurt v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “As shown, the law surrounding the introduction of a defendant’s post-arrest, pre-Miranda silence during the prosecution’s case-in-chief is far from “plain, clear or obvious.” There is a significant federal circuit court split regarding this issue, and the United States Supreme Court has yet to address it. The Fifth Circuit addressed the issue in Salinas and found, after reviewing the issue under a plain-error analysis, that the error could not be held to be a plain error in light of the unsettled law surrounding the issue. This Court agrees that, in the present case, the error cannot be found to meet all the elements of the plain-error test in that it cannot be said to be a “plain, clear or obvious” error under the law in Mississippi. Accordingly, this issue is without merit.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 75 So. 3d 49 - Jenkins v. State

2. “Unlike the cases discussed previously, Hurt’s pre-Miranda silence was initially brought up, not during cross-examination, but during the State’s opening statement and then again during the State’s direct examination of ■ Sheriff Newman. In such [a] situation, the Fifth Amendment is implicated because, at the time the prosecutor made the comment[,] and Sheriff Newman testified concerning Hurt’s silence, Hurt had not taken the stand. Neither the United States Supreme Court nor our Mississippi Supreme Court has addressed the specific' issue at hand, namely, whether the use of a defendant’s post-arrest, pre-Miranda silence as substantive evidence of a defendant’s guilt violates the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 189 So. 3d 641 - Demetrious Lawan Averett v. State of Mississippi