Commonwealth v. Schmidt’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 federal appellate · 33 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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “. . . In other words, under Escobedo [ v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 ], supra, an individual is not unconstitutionally deprived of the assistance of counsel during police questioning, unless he requested such assistance and was not effectively warned of his right to remain silent [footnote omitted]. . . . In the present case, it was established by credible and competent evidence, which the lower court accepted as true, that Schmidt never requested the assistance of counsel during the period of police questioning. His testimony to the contrary was rejected below as unworthy of belief. . . . Under the circumstances, the absence of counsel during the questioning did not per se render evidence of the incriminating statements constitutionally inadmissible.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Heckathorn