Whitehead v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “If there is ever a criminal prosecution in which the defendant does not need a lawyer to represent him on the trial, the instant case was not one. Whatever crime he may have been guilty of other than the one charged against him, an attorney could have better protected him than he did or could from the influences that well could have distracted the minds of the jurors from the single issue in the case of defendant's knowledgable possession of pentobarbital. By his having to defend himself, he was placed in an almost impossible position, one in which the more knowledgeable he appeared to be about controlled substances, the more clearly guilty he would have appeared to the jury to be. . . . He should have had a lawyer even if the relative facts were short and simple. For stronger reason, he should not have been required to try the case without a lawyer under the ramified circumstances of this particular case.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 484 So. 2d 1185 - Leonard v. State

2. “the trial judge may have had good reason for concluding that by reason of some action or inaction by defendant he had waived or relinquished his right to counsel, but the record and transcript do not disclose it.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 484 So. 2d 1185 - Leonard v. State