Sobel v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. “The record in this case reflects that defense counsel, in the middle of the second week of trial, moved for a mistrial, stating to the court that he had had health problems through the summer prior to trial and that “there were things I should have done in Dawn’s case that I didn’t, and I didn’t do them.” He stated that he had failed to properly prepare for the case and that there was lack of communication between himself and his client. Further, a young lawyer who was associated with him for the trial of the case expressed to the judge his concern for how the case was handled; he stated that the ease disturbed him to the extent that he had discussed it with two other attorneys during the weekend recess and they had agreed that under the circumstances the petitioner’s counsel was ineffective and a motion for mistrial would be appropriate. The specific examples given of ineffective counsel were the failure to make motions, the improper assertion of the insanity defense, and the failure to properly investigate the case. [[Image here]] The trial judge in this instance expressed concern that to grant a mistrial for ineffective assistance of counsel would set a dangerous precedent, opening the door for this issue to be used in a tactical manner in criminal trials. I disagree with the trial judge’s concern. Although a defendant may be entitled to a mistrial because his counsel was dilatory and unprepared, that does not mean that there is no recourse to avoid the improper use of our”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Sobel v. State