State v. Escobedo’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 5 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We fail to find presumed prejudice from our review of the record. Most of the media reports were factual in nature and restricted to the first two months following the incident. There were some letters printed in the newspaper critical of the impact of the illegal immigrant population in the community, but other letters and editorials were conciliatory and spoke favorably about immigrants in the community. Community and law enforcement leaders repeatedly emphasized in the news reports the incident was not racially motivated. Moreover, extensive voir dire was conducted in this case with most jurors responding the pretrial publicity would not adversely affect their ability to be fair and impartial. See [State v.] Wagner, 410 N.W.2d [207,] 211 [(Iowa 1987)] (voir dire can be trusted to expose prejudices based on pretrial publicity). Escobedo argues this case illustrates the impropriety of relying upon voir dire examination to expose prejudice in publicized cases because jurors can be dishonest in their responses to the questions, and prejudice should be presumed when a biased juror actually becomes part of the jury. We disagree. The incident involving the dismissed juror does not give rise to a presumption of prejudice on the part of the jury. The presumption of prejudice pertains to pervasive pretrial publicity. Claims that the jury that did serve was not impartial must be grounded on evidence appearing of record. State v. Neuendorf, 509 N.W.2d 743, 747 (Iowa 1993). There was n”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Escobedo v. Lund

2. “The case proceeded to trial with jury selection commencing September 6, 1995. The jury was impaneled on September 8. Three alternate jurors were selected. Prospective jurors were examined by the court as well as the attorneys. The evidence in the case was presented to the jury over the course of the following two weeks. The trial court then gave its instructions to the jury and closing arguments were presented by the attorneys. The alternate jurors were subsequently excused but told by the trial judge not to discuss the case until a verdict had been returned. The jury then retired to begin its deliberations shortly after 3 p.m. on September 21. They deliberated into the evening and were excused around 10 p.m. with instructions to return at 9 a.m. the next morning to resume their deliberations. The next morning, the county attorney informed the trial judge he recently received information from a person who reported hearing a juror make racial remarks about Escobedo at a bar a few nights earlier. The trial judge conducted an inquiry into the report, which included testimony from the juror and the informant, and dismissed the juror from the case. He then told Escobedo’s lawyer he “intended to use” the dismissed first alternate juror, and Escobe-do’s lawyer responded “yes.” The alternate juror was summoned and replaced the dismissed juror. Deliberations resumed after the trial judge instructed the jury to begin their deliberations anew. The jury returned its verdict later in the ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Escobedo v. Lund

3. “Our rules of criminal procedure permit the selection of alternate jurors to sit at trial and replace any regular juror who becomes unable to serve, or becomes disqualified, before the jury retires to deliberate on the verdict. Iowa R.Crim. P. 17(15). There are a variety of circumstances that can arise during the course of a trial which require jurors to discontinue their service, and the availability of alternate jurors to replace dismissed jurors helps to avoid the time, expense, anxiety, and inconvenience associated with a mistrial. Although some jurisdictions recognize the replacement of regular jurors during deliberations, we do not. Our rules only permit the replacement of a regular juror prior to the commencement of the deliberations and require alternate jurors to be discharged after the deliberations begin. Id. We agree with Escobedo the district court was not authorized to replace a juror during deliberations. We also agree Escobedo would have been entitled to a mistrial after the trial court dismissed the juror during the deliberations.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Escobedo v. Lund