Mares v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

23 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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In all prosecutions for felonies, the defendant must be personally present at trial, and he must likewise be present in all cases of misdemeanor when the punishment or any part thereof is imprisonment in jail....” (Emphasis ours.) . It is noteworthy that the court in both Mares and Cooper seems to place the burden on the accused to establish prejudice to his cause resulting from his absence in spite of the requirement of article 33.03 that he must be personally present. Additionally, both decisions seem to confuse the concept of “harmless error”

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

2. “It is not everything that takes place in the absence of a defendant upon trial for which a reversal should be ordered. There must be an actual showing of injury or a showing of facts from which injury might reasonably be inferred.”

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