Johnson v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

18 federal appellate · 22 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 44 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The lawyer engaged in defense of an accused should be — and should be recognized as — a professional advocate with a highly important but none the less limited function, i. e., limited and circumscribed by the rules of the system and the ethics of the profession. [Footnote omitted.] At the trial stage his duty is to put the prosecution to its proof, to test the case against the accused, to insist that the procedural safeguards be followed and to put forward evidence which is valid, relevant and helpful to his client. On appeal his function is to point to trial errors, if such there be, and expound the applicable rules of law. In short he is to ‘put his client’s best foot forward’. This does not require nor warrant his advancing absurd or legally frivolous contentions. Counsel, not the client, must make the decisions as to how to present a case. [Footnote omitted.] Indeed it is neither necessary nor desirable to present baseless contentions in performing his duty to expose deficiencies or frailties in the trial proceedings. “Even when his trained judgment tells him that the client’s cause on appeal is well nigh hopeless, the court-appointed counsel performs an important function by making sure that the reviewing court understands all the salient facts and all the relevant legal authorities before reaching a final decision. Although an appellate court must view the record in the light most favorable to the appellee, appellant’s counsel serves both his client and the Court by b”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. High v. State · Monroe v. State

2. ““One result of these fallacious and blurred conceptions of the advocate’s function is the public image of the ‘criminal lawyer’ as the servile ‘mouthpiece’ or the alter ego of the accused or one who does for the accused what the accused would do for himself if he had the legal skills. This is more than a fallacy; it is totally incompatible with the basic duty of a lawyer as an officer of the court and contrary to the traditions and ethics of the legal profession. A lawyer complying with the canons and traditions of the bar advocates but does not identify with his client. The alter ego or ‘mouthpiece’ school of thought, which is happily a minute fraction of the legal profession, would carry this perverted notion to the point of complete identification of lawyer with client, i. e., the lawyer as an extension of the accused himself with a community of interest, motivation and goals, bound to engage in falsehood and chicane at the command of the client. These concepts have long been rejected by the legal profession and find no acceptance among honorable members of the bar.” Johnson v. United States, 360 F.2d 844, 866 (D.C.Cir.1966) (Burger, J., concurring) (emphasis added, footnote omitted).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Rudin v. Dow Jones & Co., Inc.

3. “[c]ounsel . . . must remember that under our adversary system an appellate court cannot function efficiently without lawyers to present whatever there is to be said on behalf of appellant, however meager his claims may be, so that the Court can make an informed appraisal.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. McClendon