Torres v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The supreme court has adopted the procedure outlined by the Fourth District in Nelson v. State, 274 So.2d 256 (Fla. 4th DCA 1973), for addressing a criminal defendant’s request to discharge court-appointed counsel. See Hardwick v. State, 521 So.2d 1071, 1074-75 (Fla.1988). Preliminarily, the court must determine whether the defendant’s request to discharge counsel is unequivocal and, if it is, the court must ascertain the reason for the request. Jackson v. State, 33 So.3d 833, 835 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010). If the request is unequivocal and the defendant asserts counsel’s ineffective assistance as the reason for the request, the court must conduct an inquiry “ ‘to determine if there is reasonable cause to believe that court-appointed counsel is not rendering effective assistance and, if so, appoint substitute counsel.’ ” Milkey v. State, 16 So.3d 172, 174 (Fla. 2d DCA 2009) (quoting Maxwell v. State, 892 So.2d 1100, 1102 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004)). If the court determines there is no such reasonable cause, then it need not pursue further inquiry. If the defendant pursues his request to discharge counsel, the court must inform him he is not entitled to court-appointed substitute counsel and that he must represent himself. Id. If the defendant seeks to represent himself, the court must conduct a Faretta inquiry to determine that the defendant is knowingly and intelligently waiving his right to counsel. Maxwell, 892 So.2d at 1102 .”

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

2. “whether a trial court conducted an adequate Nelson inquiry for an abuse of discretion. Generally, the trial court’s ruling may also be reviewed to determine whether the error was harmless. However, a court’s failure to conduct any preliminary Nelson hearing is per se error such that a harmless error test does not apply.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 208 So. 3d 126 - Campbell v. State

3. “[T]he trial court improperly assumed that Torres' dissatisfaction with counsel was not based on -9- counsel's incompetency or that a Nelson hearing, if conducted, would have dispelled any notion of counsel's incompetency.”

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