Davis v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 10 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"Finally, appellant contends that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to compulsory process when the trial court quashed three subpoenas which had been served by Mr. Davis on the Attorney General of the United States, the Acting Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, and the Director of the Maryland Lottery. Appellant wanted these individuals to testify as to the operation of lotteries in general, the extent of their existence in the District of Columbia, and the efforts of the government to regulate them. It is apparent that appellant intended to use this testimony to support his claim of selective enforcement. The right of an accused to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor is undisputed; nevertheless, there are limitations on that right. The Supreme Court delineated those limitations in holding that an accused was denied his right to compulsory process where the 'State arbitrarily denied him the right to put on the stand a witness who was physically and mentally capable of testifying to events that he had personally observed, and whose testimony would have been relevant and material to the defense.’ Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 23 , 87 S.Ct. 1920, 1925 , 18 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1967) (footnote omitted). Here, appellant can show neither (1) that the witnesses could testify as to events of which they had personal knowledge, or (2) that their testimony was relevant and material to the defense.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 47 Md. App. 1 - Darby v. State