Van v. Jones’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 federal appellate · 1 district · 7 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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Mitchell v. Mason, 325 F.3d 732 (6th Cir.2003), signaled a development in our approach to the [critical stage] doctrine now under consideration. The case designated a broad time period, the season of pretrial investigation and preparation, as a critical stage. Habeas petitioner Charlie Lee Mitchell had been appointed an unusually terrible trial lawyer named Gerald K. Evelyn. This attorney represented Mitchell at preliminary examination and a bail hearing. His law license was then suspended for a little over a month. His poor (non-) performance continued at trial, where he did not make an opening argument. Id. at 735 . Before the trial, Mitchell complained in six letters addressed to the trial court that Evelyn had never visited him in prison nor consulted with him in court. This claim was supported by witness testimony. The trial court denied Mitchell’s motion to withdraw Evelyn as counsel. Id. at 736 . The same judge ruled, at a special state court hearing convened for the purpose of adducing evidence on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, that Mitchell had not shown prejudice and that he had benefit-ted from effective assistance. Ibid. The district court granted Mitchell’s federal habeas petition, and we affirmed this grant in Mitchell v. Mason, 257 F.3d 554 (6th Cir.2001). In a one-line order, the Supreme Court vacated our decision and remanded to our court for further review in light of its recent decision in Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685 , 122 S.Ct. 1843 , 152 L.Ed.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 773 F. Supp. 2d 611 - Graves v. Padula

2. “If [a particular proceeding is] a critical stage, because [defendant’s counsel was entirely absent, there is no need [for the defendant] to make a showing of prejudice. Whether [a proceeding is] a critical stage depends on whether there was a reasonable probability that [the defendant’s case could suffer significant consequences from his total denial of counsel at the stage.... [T]he overarching legal question of whether a particular proceeding is a “critical stage” of the trial should focus not only on the specific case ..., but the general question of whether such a stage is “critical.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. United States v. Norberto Adolio Robles

3. “In order to assess if a given portion of a criminal proceeding is a critical stage, we must ask how likely it is that significant consequences might have resulted from the absence of counsel at the stage of the criminal proceeding... There must be a reasonable likelihood that such prejudice will arise from a complete absence of counsel.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Stone v. Commonwealth