414 So. 2d 247 - Carroll v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. “We have concluded that the per se reversible error rule of Richardson v. State, supra, requires that we award appellant a new trial. We do so with great reluctance. The proffered evidence appears to have little if any probative value. Surely the photograph of an empty truck lends absolutely nothing to appellant’s defense. The second photograph, showing a truck’s dashboard in which is a gaping hole, once the supposed repository of a radio, lends credence to appellant’s story only if supported by a string of inferences which stretch so thin as to endanger if not to destroy fundamental concepts of relevance. At best the culminating inference is cumulative. Thus, if exclusion had been based upon a rule of evidence, it is doubtful if error could have been shown and it is certain that prejudice could not have been shown. At worst, any error would have been considered harmless. Because of the serious consequences of a violation of the Richardson rule a word about its appropriate application seems in order. Initially the rule was formulated to ensure fairness to a defendant in a case in which the state had violated a discovery rule. In a case in which the trial court refused to exclude states’ witnesses whose names had not been disclosed to the defense despite defendant’s activation of then Rule 1.220(e) of the Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure (now Rule 3.220), this Court held that refusal to impose the sanction of exclusion was not per se reversible error. However, said Judge Owe”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Johnson v. State