Usrey 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. ““Generally speaking, a mistrial is no trial. If, because of something that transpired or occurred during the progress of the trial, it is made clearly to appear that justice cannot be done, the proceeding should be discontinued and a mistrial ordered. “It is often difficult to decide whether or not the substantial rights of a party litigant have been injuriously affected by some event, incident, or happening which transpired during the progress of a trial. “The courts recognize that some occurrences, by their very nature and import, are so grossly improper and highly prejudicial to the rights of the accused that" neither retraction by counsel nor action by the trial court can destroy their sinister influences. Under these circumstances, the only proper course left to the trial judge is to declare a mistrial if the appropriate request is made. This action should be taken if the judge is convinced that the prejudicial matter which was injected into the proceedings will probably affect the verdict o-f the jury and deny to the defendant a fair and impartial trial.””

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