Murdoch v. Castro’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 2 district ·

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

1. “Today, we address a situation where a substantial showing has been made that, depending upon the content of Dinardo’s letter, the Confrontation Clause and at torney-client privilege are potentially at odds — a set of facts the Supreme Court has not yet examined. Its precedents, however, clearly provide that evidentiary privileges or other state laws must yield if necessary to ensure the level of cross-examination demanded by the Sixth Amendment.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Murdoch v. Castro · Murdoch v. Castro

2. “Other than Dinardo’s predictable denial when arrested for his involvement in the crime, the privileged letter is the only evidence of prior (purportedly) inconsistent statements by Dinardo regarding Murdoch’s involvement in the robbery and murder. General impeachment for bias based on his plea bargain questioned Dinardo’s reliability and trustworthiness in a much different (and lesser) way than would actual statements inconsistent with what he was then saying on the stand. Thus, Murdoch’s ability to fully cross examine Dinardo was severely limited by the privilege ruling.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Murdoch v. Castro

3. “[W]ithout the letter, we are unable to determine in the first instance whether, in this case, the attorney-client privilege must fall before the right of the petitioner to seek out the truth in the process of defending himself. We will not require yielding of so vital a constitutional right as the effective cross-examination for bias of an adverse witness, where neither the state nor federal courts actually x’eviewed the privileged material on ha-beas and made a decision as to its relevant probative value.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 439 F. Supp. 2d 1125 - United States v. WR Grace