Stumpf v. Mitchell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate · 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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Of the two bullets that struck [Mr.] Stout, only pieces of each were recovered. Part of the bullet that struck him between the eyes was recovered during surgery, while a second fragment was found in the second bedroom. A portion of the bullet that struck Stout in the top of the head was recovered during surgery, but part of it had to be left in place. Another bullet was recovered from the mattress of the second bedroom. Stout’s wife was shot four times in the first bedroom. She died from three gunshots to the left side of her head. The fourth bullet went through her left wrist and struck her chest without penetrating the skin of her chest. A fifth bullet was recovered from the wall of that bedroom, above the headboard of the bed. The chrome Raven[, Edmonds's handgun that Stumpf and Wesley had carried into the home along with Wesley’s black .25 caliber pistol,] was never recovered by the police, and Stumpf admitted that he had thrown it out of the car window after he and Wesley had left the Stout residence. The black .25 caliber pistol was recovered by the police after the men sold it, along with one of Stout’s guns, to an individual in Washington, Pennsylvania. Ronald Dye, a ballistics expert from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, a division of the Ohio Attorney General’s office, testified at Stumpf's factual basis hearing as to the forensic findings regarding bullets and cartridge cases recovered from the murder scene. Dye testified that there wer”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Stumpf v. Houk

2. “[The defendant's] attorneys represented to the court that they had explained to Stumpf the elements of the crime, their own arguments to the court during the plea colloquy and the evidentiary hearing to establish a factual basis for the plea refute the typical presumption that defense counsel have fully and adequately explained all elements of a crime to a client before he pleads guilty. Indeed, defense counsel's representations to the court either betray their own ignorance of the intent element of aggravated murder, or represent a woefully inadequate understanding of the meaning of a guilty plea. Finally, the plea colloquy itself, along with Stumpf's statements to the court through all stages of the proceedings, demonstrates Stumpf's unwillingness to admit to intent.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 936 So. 2d 993 - Jones v. State

3. “[T]he prosecutor’s theories of the same crime in the two different trials negate one another. They are totally inconsistent. This flip[-]flopping of theories of the offense was inherently unfair. Under the peculiar facts of this case the actions by the prosecutor violate the fundamental fairness essential to the very concept of justice.... The state cannot divide and conquer in this manner. Such actions reduce criminal trials to mere gamesmanship and rob them of their supposed search for the truth.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Stumpf v. Houk