State v. Juarez’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 85 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 87 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he question [Chapman ] instructs the reviewing court to consider is not what effect the constitutional error might generally be expected to have upon a reasonable jury, but rather what effect it had upon the guilty verdict in the case at hand. Harmless-error review looks, we have said, to the basis on which the jury actually rested its verdict. The inquiry, in other words, is not whether, in a trial that occurred without the error, a guilty verdict would surely have been rendered, but whether the guilty verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Shoen · State v. King

2. “[T]hat the evidence was sufficient, or even overwhelming, does not mean that the error was necessarily harmless. Harmless error analysis is better la-belled as ‘harmless error impact analysis’ because it is the impact of that error that the appellate court must consider. The overwhelming evidence of guilt is a factor, often a very important one, in determining whether, beyond a reasonable doubt, the error has no impact on the verdict.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Hendry · State v. Caulfield

3. “[I]f the verdict actually rendered was surely unattributable to the error, the error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Buggs · State v. Shannon