Rye v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Our cases hold that objections to improper jury argument must be made at the time. Hunter v. State, 222 Tenn. 672 , 440 S.W.2d 1 (1969); White v. State, 210 Tenn. 78 , 356 S.W.2d 411 (1962). In Turner v. State, 188 Tenn. 312 , 219 S.W.2d 188 , it was said: ‘It is thoroughly settled, under our practice, that objectionable argument or improper remarks of counsel afford no ground for a new trial, where no objection is made or exception taken at the time of the argument, (citing cases).’ There are many good reasons for this rule. Among others, the trial judge can often effectively instruct the jury to disregard improper argument; counsel can be held within permissible limits before going so far as to commit harmful error; and, of course, defense counsel may be of the opinion that facially illegal argument is in a given instance more helpful than harmful to his client and deliberately waive any objection.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Compton