Haliburton v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

26 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Our examination of the record does not reflect any harm to appellant that might be traced to the additional charge. The record before us shows only that the jury was concerned with concurrent sentencing and requested information from the court. There is no showing that the jury’s consideration of the information supplied by the court worked to the detriment of appellant, (footnote omitted) “Further, we are unable to presume harm in this situation. Knowledge that the sentence would run concurrently is a two-edged sword, the information could have been used to increase the punishment or, just as easily, used to reduce the number of years to avoid excessive punishment. We cannot determine from the record which path the jury took and, with these alternatives, harm will not be presumed. (footnote omitted).””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Strong v. State · McGowan v. State

2. “There is no guarantee in Sec. 3.03 that a joint trial of the offenses will result in a less severe penalty than separate trials of the same offense. We find the only benefit assured appellant by the language of Sec. 3.03 is concurrent sentencing. The inducement to appellant not to seek a severance of joined offenses is that his risk will be reduced (not eliminated) because the sentencing will be concurrent as opposed to consecutive. The policy of the law should require juries to make informed and intelligent decisions based on every piece of information legally available. The effect of appellant’s argument would exclude information from the jury hoping that in their ignorance the jury would return a less severe punishment. Such a result is not supported by law or logic.”

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

3. “In effect this section treats multiple convictions resulting from prosecution of joined offenses as a single conviction for sentencing purposes. A separate sentence is pronounced for each conviction— so that, for example, if one conviction is invalidated on appeal valid sentences will remain — but any imprisonment assessed must run concurrently, [emphsis added].”

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