Johnson v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 58 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 64 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The test results on the negroid hairs presented at trial are much more troubling. At trial, DNA results on these hairs could not exclude Mr. Johnson, but the probability that they belonged to another African-American were only 1 in 250. Considering the population of African-Americans in Arkansas alone, these results could conceivably include hundreds or thousands of people besides Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson acknowledges that retesting could result in the same narrowing of probability that happened when the cigarette butt was retested, but that the 1 in 250 ratio is so broad and includes so many persons other than Mr. Johnson, that he is entitled to retesting of the negroid hairs under Act 1780. We agree that retesting of the negroid hairs could be materially relevant to Mr. Johnson’s claim of innocence .... For these reasons, we reverse the trial court’s denial of Mr. Johnson’s Act 1780 petition for retesting of the negroid hairs and remand for the trial court to have such tests conducted.”

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

2. “DNA test evidence was presented at both trials on the cigarette butt and negroid hairs, and Johnson was not able to be excluded as the donor of the DNA. According to Kermit Channell of the Arkansas Crime Laboratory, the chances the DNA belonged to another African American were 1 in 250. Sometime after the first trial, further testing was performed on the saliva on the cigarette butt and it was shown that Johnson still was not excluded as the donor and the probability that another African American was the donor of the DNA was decreased from 1 in 250 to 1 in 28 million.. In other words, retesting actually made it more likely that it was Johnson’s DNA on the cigarette butt. The negroid hairs were not retested.”

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

3. “Act 1780 was not meant to do away with finality in judgments. It was meant to be used to test evidence that will prove actual innocence of a wrongly-convicted person. It is conceivable that one could test and retest evidence repeatedly, each time obtaining a more narrow result, while there is still a “theoretical possibility” that at some point a retest would exclude a defendant. Where would it end?”

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