Moses v. Payne’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

41 federal appellate · 2 district · 2 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 105 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[W]hen a Supreme Court decision does not `squarely address[] the issue in th[e] case' or establish a legal principle that `clearly extend[s]' to a new context to the extent required by the Supreme Court . . ., it cannot be said, under AEDPA, there is `clearly established' Supreme Court precedent addressing the issue before us, and so we must defer to the state court's decision.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Murdoch v. Castro · 769 F. Supp. 2d 1197 - SINTAY v. Martel

2. “[T]he Supreme Court’s cases have focused only on whether an evidentiary rule, by its own terms, violated a defendant’s right to present evidence. These cases do not squarely address whether a court’s exercise of discretion to exclude expert testimony violates a criminal defendant’s constitutional right to present relevant evidence. Nor do they clearly establish “a controlling legal standard” for evaluating discretionary decisions to exclude the kind of evidence at issue here. Therefore, the state appellate court’s determination that the trial court’s exercise of discretion to exclude expert testimony under Rule 702 did not violate Moses’s constitutional rights cannot be contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Brown v. Horell

3. “Indeed, Rule 702 is different in kind from the rules [struck down by the Supreme Court]. The evidentiary rules in those cases, by their terms, required the trial court to exclude crucial evidence that had a critical effect on the trial, with little or no rational justification. In general, the rules precluded a defendant from testifying, excluded testimony from key percipient witnesses, or excluded the introduction of all evidence relating to a crucial defense. In contrast, Rule 702 does not require a trial court to exclude evidence. Rather, it authorizes a court to admit expert testimony if it will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or a fact in issue.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Jay