Coleman v. Alabama’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

896 federal appellate · 54 district · 1,881 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 3,393 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “requiring the provision of counsel depends, as noted, upon an analysis”

   76 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Cahill v. Rushen · Fleming v. Kemp

2. “so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.”

   9 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Manson v. Brathwaite · State v. Betts, Unpublished Decision (10-18-2007)

3. ““ * * * A ‘criminal prosecution’ certainly does not start only when the trial starts. If the commencement of the trial were the start of the ‘criminal prosecution’ in the constitutional sense, then indigents would likely go to trial without effective representation by counsel. * * * “If we are to adhere to the mandate of the Constitution and not give it merely that meaning which appeals to the personal tastes of those who from time to time sit here, we should read its terms in light of the realities of what ‘criminal prosecutions’ truly mean. “I was impressed with the need for that kind of strict construction on experiences in my various Russian journeys. In that nation detention incommunicado is the common practice, and the period of permissible detention now extends for nine months. Where there is custodial interrogation, it is clear that the critical stage of the trial takes place long before the courtroom formalities commence. That is apparent to one who attends criminal trials in Russia. Those that I viewed never put in issue the question of guilt; guilt was an issue resolved in the inner precincts of a prison under questioning by the police. The courtroom trial concerned only the issue of punishment. “Custodial interrogation is in practice— here and in other nations — so critical that we would give ‘criminal prosecutions’ as used in the Sixth Amendment a strained and narrow meaning if we held that it did not include that phase. My brother Harlan in his dissent in Mirand”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. United States v. Miller · Best v. State