Pineda v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.300(b) provides for a reasonable voir dire examination of prospective jurors by counsel. Because the purpose of voir dire is to obtain a fair and impartial jury, time restrictions or limits on numbers of questions can result in the loss of this fundamental right. Williams v. State, 424 So.2d 148 (Fla. 5th DCA 1982). Although a trial judge has considerable discretion in determining the extent of counsel’s examination of the venire, we have held it is unreasonable and an abuse of discretion to limit counsel’s voir dire examinations of each potential juror to one-to-three minutes. Gosha v. State, 534 So.2d 912 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988). The limitation in this case ran afoul of the Gosha rule. It prevented Pineda’s counsel from adequately following up in an area of inquiry which proved important in light of the charges and the theory of defense. Further, the severity of the charged offenses made it more unreasonable to limit the defendant’s voir dire examination of twenty-three potential jurors to less than thirty minutes.”

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