Mark v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate ·

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

1. “Both the defense and the State agreed at trial that Leslie Warren, a maintenance employee at an eastbound rest area in Chappell, Nebraska, saw Mark at the rest area. However, the parties dispute whether Warren saw Mark on October 31 or on November 1. The murders took place on November 1 between 1:00 and 3:00 a.m. If Mark was seen in Chappell on the morning of Friday, October 31, he could have traveled further east and arrived at the Leslie Mark farm by the time of the murders. Thus, this fact would be consistent with guilt. If Warren saw Mark the morning of November 1, this information would have established an alibi for Mark given the time of the murders and the distance, approximately 684 miles, between the Leslie Mark farm and Chappell.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mark v. Ault

2. “Criminalist Robert Harvey testified [at trial] that tests indicated all four cigarettes [found at the crime scene] were smoked by a person with type-0 blood. Mark’s blood was type-0 and he also smoked Marlboro cigarettes. However, before trial it was discovered that the cigarette in the upstairs room was smoked by Deputy James Weiser whose blood type was type-A. In a March 1976 memorandum, prosecutor Harry W. Zanville acknowledged that Harvey informed him it was “not uncommon for a small saliva sample taken from a type-A secretor to have a type-0 test result.” Harvey’s postconviction testimony confirms this assertion. This document and other reports concerning the cigarette butts were not produced by the State.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mark v. Ault