Shorter v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

67 federal appellate · 11 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 84 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We need not now decide whether the prosecution’s use of prior convictions obtained without counsel for impeachment purposes violates the rationale of Bur-gett. In the case at bar the prior convictions were not offered by the prosecutor; they were offered by the testimony of appellant himself. While the prosecutor stated that he intended to offer the priors if appellant took the stand and the court indicated it would admit them if offered, the prosecutor never had a chance either to do so or to change his mind. Appellant did not wait to see if the priors would in fact be offered and then object to them; rather, he offered the evidence himself as a matter of trial strategy, probably to soften the anticipated blow in the eyes of the jury. Having adopted this strategy, which appeared to be in his best interest, he cannot now be heard to complain that his own act of offering such evidence violated his constitutional rights. We therefore hold appellant’s contention to be without merit. .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Williams

2. ““Actually the case (Bates v. Nelson) was remanded ‘for further consideration in the light of Burgett v. Texas, Bruton v. United States, and Roberts v. Russell.’ (Citations omitted) The issue common to Bates v. Nelson and the three cases cited in it — Burgett, Bruton and Roberts , concerned cautionary instructions. But the case at bar has no such link. “We suggest that the Supreme Court in Bates was simply telling this court to reexamine our conclusion that a limiting instruction fully protected the accused; for that proposition we had relied upon Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U.S. 232 , 77 S.Ct. 294 , 1 L.Ed.2d 278 , a case expressly overruled on that point in Bruton. Bruton, Burgett, and Roberts provided helpful guidelines as to the efficacy or lack of efficacy of such instructions. See also Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250 , 89 S.Ct. 1726 , 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1969) also involving Bruton.” (412 F.2d p. 435)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Bates v. Nelson

3. ““The evidence of flight after a crime has been committed, whether from the scene or at a later time, is admissible since such evidence may tend to prove the defendant’s consciousness of guilt. The probative value, if any, of the evidence of flight will depend upon all the facts and circumstances in evidence in the case and is a question of fact for the jury.” See United States v. Getchel, 467 F.2d 1378 , 1379 (9th Cir. 1972); Rossetti v. United States, 315 F.2d 86 , 87 (9th Cir. 1963).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Epperson