Commonwealth v. Darden’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

74 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 74 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““[The juvenile defendant] cannot be compared with an adult in full possession of his senses and knowledgeable of the consequences of his admissions. He would have no way of knowing what the consequences of his confession were without advice as to his rights —from someone concerned with securing him those rights — and without the aid of more mature judgment as to the steps he should take in the predicament in which he found himself. A lawyer or an adult relative or friend could have given the petitioner the protection which his own immaturity could not. Adult advice would have put him on a less unequal footing with his interrogators. Without some adult advice against this inequality, a 14 year-old boy would not be able to know, let alone assert, such constitutional rights as he had. To allow this conviction to stand would, in effect, be to treat him as if he had no constitutional rights.” Id. at 54-55 , 82 S.Ct. at 1212 .”

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

2. “judged by the more exacting standards of maturity”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re KWB