Porter v. Singletary’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 federal appellate · 6 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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Finally, Porter claims that he was denied his constitutional right to an impartial sentencing judge. Porter supports this claim with a proffer of crucial new evidence as follows: On Tuesday morning, March 28, 1995, counsel for Porter received a telephone call from Jerry Beck, the Clerk of the Glades County Circuit Court in which Porter was sentenced. The Clerk stated that he had some information regarding Porter's case, and that he was informing both the state attorney's office and Porter's counsel. The Clerk stated that either before or during Porter's trial, the judge presiding over the case, the Honorable Richard M. Stanley, stopped by the Clerk's Office early one morning, and the judge and the Clerk drank coffee together. The judge stated that he had changed the venue in the Porter trial from Charlotte County to Glades County because there had been a lot of publicity and Glades County "had good, fair minded people here who would listen and consider the evidence and then convict the son-of-a-bitch. Then, Judge Stanley said, he would send Porter to the chair." Affidavit of Beck. [Note 5] [Note 5.] The March 28, 1995, opinion of the Florida Supreme Court merely acknowledges consideration of this proffer. The proffer to the Florida Supreme Court was in the form of an affidavit of counsel reporting on the telephone conversation of that morning. The proffer has now been supplemented with an affidavit of Clerk Beck himself.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Porter v. State · Pizzuto v. Arave

2. “In the Florida sentencing scheme, the sentencing judge serves as the ultimate factfinder. If the judge was not impartial, there would be a violation of due process. The law is well-established that a fundamental tenet of due process is a fair and impartial tribunal. Marshall v. Jerrico, Inc., 446 U.S. 238 , 100 S.Ct. 1610 , 64 L.Ed.2d 182 (1980). There the Supreme Court said: The Due Process Clause entitles a person to an impartial and disinterested tribunal in both civil and criminal cases. This requirement of neutrality in adjudicative proceedings safeguards the two central concerns of procedural due process, the prevention of unjustified or mistaken deprivations and the promotion of participation and dialogue by affected individuals in the decisionmaking process.... The neutrality requirement helps to guarantee that life, liberty, or property will not be taken on the basis of an erroneous or distorted conception of the facts or the law.... At the same time, it preserves both the appearance and reality of fairness, "generating the feeling, so important to a popular government, that justice has been done,"... by ensuring that no person will be deprived of his interests in the absence of a proceeding in which he may present his case with assurance that the arbiter is not predisposed to find against him.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Porter v. State · 740 So. 2d 33 - Sparks v. State

3. “A Justice shall disclose on the record information that the Justice believes the parties or their lawyers might consider relevant to the question of disqualification, even if the Justice believes there is no real basis for disqualification.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Marriage of Monteau v. Monteau · American Textile Manufacturers Institute, Inc. v. The Limited, Inc.