People v. Michael’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
28 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently June 2014 · most notably 483 So. 2d 420 - State v. Johnson (1986), State v. Millanes (1994)
28 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.
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] mistrial founded solely upon the convenience of the court and the jury is certainly not manifestly necessary. While the court could not have continued defendant's trial in the absence of defense counsel, a delay of several days would certainly appear to have been reasonable, despite any inconveniences it might have imposed upon the court and some jurors. Rather than considering this alternative seriously, the court sua sponte and unfortunately declared a mistrial. That decision constituted an abuse of discretion. A defendant's right to have his fate determined as expeditiously as possible and by the first jury to which the case is presented is a basic one, and may not be set aside without strong reason. While it is unfortunate that the travel plans of the court and several jurors might have been disrupted, such inconvenience is a necessary part of our criminal justice system... . [A] citizen called to jury duty will often be required to make some personal sacrifices, financial or otherwise. This usually seems unjust to those so called upon, and in fact it sometimes is unjust, but it is necessary as long as we are to persist in our cherished belief that an accused felon is entitled to be tried by a jury of his peers. This does not mean that juror discontent will never justify a mistrial. Indeed, if a jury becomes biased against a defendant as a result of the length of the trial or for some other reason, and is unable to fairly consider that defendant's guilt or innocence, ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“a doctrine with obvious jurisdictional overtones.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Johnson v. State
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.