State v. Lapointe’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We agree with the State’s rather than the defendant’s, basic conception of the legal import of Rule 43—more particularly, the State’s view that Rule 43, while acknowledging the right of a defendant to be present at all stages of the trial, also imposes upon a human defendant a legal obligation to be thus present. Accordingly, we decide that notwithstanding that Rule 43 recognizes a defendant’s power to waive the right to be present throughout the trial of a charge of crime against him, such prerogative of waiver does not per se establish in a human defendant a right to be absent at any stage of the trial. The personal defendant has no such right of absence precisely because Rule 43 imposes upon a personal defendant the affirmative legal obligation of presence at every stage of the trial.”

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