Commonwealth v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 40 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 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[A] trial court’s decision on the ultimate question of discriminatory intent represents a finding of fact of the sort accorded great deference on .appeal and will not be overturned unless clearly erroneous. Such great deference is necessary because a reviewing court, which analyzes only the transcripts from voir dire, is not as well positioned as the trial court is to make credibility determinations. Moreover, there will seldom be much evidence on the decisive question of whether the race-neutral explanation for a peremptory challenge should be believed; the best evidence often will be the demeanor of the prosecutor who exercises the challenge.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Edwards

2. “Thus, a defendant asserting a diminished capacity defense admits responsibility for the underlying action, but contests the degree of culpability based upon his inability to formulate the requisite mental state.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Stahley