Wright v. Florida’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 federal appellate · 71 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 92 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “On February 6, 1983, a woman was found murdered in the bedroom of her home. She apparently had died the previous night after being raped and stabbed. All the doors to her home were locked, but a back window was found open. Several weeks later, Charles Westberry told his wife that petitioner Joel Wright had come to Westberry's trailer shortly after daylight on the morning of February 6 and had confessed to killing the victim. Wright lived with his parents near the victim's home. Westberry's wife notified the police, and Wright was arrested and tried for the crime. At trial, Westberry was the State's principal witness. He testified that Wright had told him on the morning of February 6 that Wright had entered the victim's house through the back window to steal money, that the victim had discovered him as he was wiping his fingerprints from her purse, and that he had killed her because he did not want to return to prison. According to Westberry, Wright counted out $290 he claimed to have taken from the victim's home, and he asked Westberry to tell the authorities that Wright had spent the previous night at Westberry's trailer. Another witness [Paul House] for the State testified that, approximately one month before the murder, he and Wright had stolen money from the victim's home after entering through the window later found open on February 6. The jury also was told that a fingerprint identified as Wright's had been found on a portable stove in the victim's bedroom. Wright took ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 857 So. 2d 861 - Wright v. State

2. “On appeal, the Supreme Court of Florida held that the trial judge's rigid application of the State's sequestration rule was inconsistent with Wright's Sixth Amendment right to present witnesses in his behalf. The court affirmed the conviction, however, because it deemed the error harmless.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 857 So. 2d 861 - Wright v. State

3. “[ Wright v. State, ] 473 So.2d 1277, 1279 ( [Fla.] 1985). Although the State acknowledged that the violation of the sequestration rule had been inadvertent, it argued that the prosecution”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 857 So. 2d 861 - Wright v. State