Charles Robert Clarke v. John C. Burke’s Empirical Analysis
440 F.2d 853 · 1971
Citation profile
12 federal appellate · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2019
12 federal appellate · 6 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Brady v. State of Maryland · United States v. Keogh · Barbee v. Warden, Maryland Penitentiary · Levin v. Katzenbach · United States of America Ex Rel. Thomas Meers, Relator-Appellee v. Walter H. Wilkins, Warden of Attica State Prison, Attica, New York
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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This is not to say that there can never be a due process violation if the prosecutor does not know that the police has in its possession evidence possibly favorable to the defendant .... It has been held ... that knowledge of the police is knowledge of the prosecutor ....”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Deliberate prosecutorial misconduct is presumably infrequent; to invalidate convictions in the few cases where this is proved, even on a fairly low showing of materiality, will have a relatively small impact on the desired finality of judgments and will deter conduct undermining the integrity of the judicial system. The request cases also stand on a special footing; the prosecution knows of the defense’s interest and, if it has failed to honor this even in good faith, it has only itself to blame. Failure to appreciate the use to which the defense could place evidence in the prosecution’s hands, or forgetfulness that it exists when a development in the trial has given it a new importance, are quite different. Since this must happen to the most scrupulous prosecutors and the issue of deterrence scarcely arises, the problems of the courts and the wider interests of society unite to require a substantially higher probability that disclosure of the evidence to the defense would have altered the result. To invalidate convictions in such cases because a combing of the prosecutors’ files after the trial has disclosed evidence possibly useful to the defense but not likely to have changed the verdict would create unbearable burdens and uncertainties.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“active misconduct on the part of the prosecution, the 'suppressed' evidence must be 'vital and material' to furnish grounds for the reversal of a conviction.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Cramer v. Fahner
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.