United States v. Holmes’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

33 federal appellate · 5 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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “encourage the jury to focus on the conduct and role of [opposing counsel]”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Milk · United States v. Khatallah

2. ““Mr. Moss is a good defense attorney, tries to get you to focus your attention over here when what really is important is right in front of you. It’s all smoke and mirrors.” (Mr. Moss was Mr. Holmes’s trial counsel.) The district court overruled Mr. Holmes’s objection that this comment was “improper.” The government continued to make similar comments about Mr. Moss later in its rebuttal argument, stating that “Mr. Moss wants to distract you and tell you about all this other evidence that’s not important,” and that issues that Mr. Moss had raised about who had owned the gun in question were a “red herring.” The government also commented that “Mr. Moss needs to make sure that they get their stories straight” (“they” presumably referred to Mr. Moss and Mr. Holmes), and that the jury should “look at Mr. Moss’s story. That’s why I said he’s got to get his stories straight.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Jewell · State v. Tunoa

3. “The government made two other potentially prejudicial comments. Taken in isolation, we believe that the district court adequately mitigated the impact of these other comments through its curative actions. Nevertheless, we strongly recommend that prosecutors not make such comments, and the cumulative effect of these comments added to the potential for prejudice in this case. Mr. Holmes objected during rebuttal argument when the government told the jury that “to buy the defendant’s story you have to believe that Officer Snyder and Officer LeMoine were lying.” Mr. Holmes objected that this argument constituted impermissible “burden shifting,” and his objection was overruled. Though the testimony of the officers and Mr. Holmes were contradictory in important respects, and Mr. Holmes attacked the credibility of the officers as part of his defense, Mr. Holmes proposed the theory in his closing argument that the officers were merely “mistaken” in their perceptions based on the “stress” and “intensity” of the situation. The government’s contention that Mr. Holmes’s testimony about the gun could be believed only if both police officers were “lying” was, therefore, an incorrect characterization of the dispositive factual issue and of Mr. Holmes’s theory of defense.”

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