Ali v. Hickman’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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “DEFENSE: I believe in your questionnaire that you said you are a regular member of a church? M.C.: Yes. DEFENSE: Anything about your spiritual training or spiritual practice that will prevent you from judging other people if you’re chosen to be a juror? M.C.: No. DEFENSE: You had to think about that for a second. M.C.: Just because the phrase “judging.” Here in this position would mean something totally different than I would apply as far as my Christian faith would be interpreted. More or less this is to make a decision based on information I’ve gained. Judging to me means I’ve made a decision based on no information, just from what I see and not knowing the person or just arbitrarily. To me, that’s a difference. DEFENSE: I understand that difference. We’re going to do our best, and as you’ve heard over and over again, it’s [the prosecutor’s] job to present evidence, and he will do his best to present lots of evidence to you, and the defense may also present evidence to you. But at the end of the day, there still may be some questions about what exactly happened or what somebody was actually thinking. M.C.: Yes. That’s true. DEFENSE: What I’m saying is you may not have exactly every fact that you need when you retire back to the jury deliberation room. M.C.: That’s correct. But then that would be—to me that would be—I wouldn’t say that’s judging. That would be making a decision based on the evidence that has been presented and taking that into consideration. DEFENSE: What yo”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ali v. Hickman

2. “COURT: [On your questionnaire, you wrote] private, “When there was an attempt of molestation of my daughter.” That’s the area you would like to explore privately, right? M.C.: Uh-huh. COURT: How old was your daughter? M.C.: My daughter was 14. COURT: How old is she now? M.C.: She is 22. COURT: This is about eight years ago? M.C.: Yes. COURT: Who was the supposed molester? M.C.: Her brother. COURT: Was he living at home with you as well? M.C.: No. It’s a child by another lady that was visiting in our home. Because he had been having problems with where he lived with his mom, and he was staying with us. COURT: Was your significant other or your husband the father of this boy? M.C.: Yes. COURT: I’m sorry? M.C.: Yes. COURT: So he was at some other home having problems there, and I take it that you agreed and your husband wanted to help him out by having him live with you? M.C.: Yes. COURT: How long was he in the home before this happened? M.C.: I would say about three months. COURT: Was it reported to the authorities? M.C.: Yes. COURT: In this county or elsewhere? M.C.: In this county. COURT: What happened? By the way, how old was he when this happened? M.C.: He was about 17 years old. COURT: So what happened? M.C.: There was an incident, my daughter came to our room and reported it to us, and I called the police department, and the police came and they arrested the young man and took him to Juvenile Hall. Because he resided, his home residence was in Santa Clara County, they too”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ali v. Hickman

3. “M.C. — yesterday, I exercised my challenge there for the following reasons: We had an out-of-the-presence-of-the-jurors discussion with her about private matters wherein she talked about family members and the discussion with those involving the molestation of one child by another child, the involvement in the system. The way she described that, she ultimately told the Court she thought that that would not play a role, would not affect her judgment. Her words were that she doesn’t think it will affect her judgment in this case. She did not say it won’t. She said she doesn’t think on that. It did involve family members within the system. That was, level one, a concern that I had. I have exercised challenges to other jurors for that same reason.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ali v. Hickman