State v. Kelly’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 30 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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Our decisions under that [Fourteenth] Amendment have made clear that convictions following the admission into evidence of confessions which are involuntary, i.e., the product of coercion, either physical or psychological, cannot stand. This is so not because such confessions are unlikely to be true but because the methods used to extract them offend an underlying principle in the enforcement of our criminal law: that ours is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system — a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charge against an accused out of his own mouth. (Citations omitted.) “From a fair reading of these expressions (excerpts from the opinions of the Connecticut courts), we cannot but conclude that the question whether Rogers’ confessions were admissible into evidence was answered by reference to a legal standard which took into account the circumstance of probable truth or falsity. And this is not a permissible standard under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The attention of the trial judge should have been focused, for purposes of the Federal Constitution, on the question whether the behavior of the State’s law enforcement officials was such as to overbear petitioner’s will to resist and bring about confessions not freely self-determined — a question to be answered with complete disregard of whether or not petitioner in fact spoke the truth.” (Emphasis added.) 8”

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

2. ““In that case the Supreme Court interpreted the Fifth Amendment to mean that in order for a confession to be admissible it must be ‘free and voluntary; that is, must not be extracted by any sort of threats or violence, nor obtained by any direct or implied promises, however slight, nor by the exertion of any improper influence.’ 168 U.S. at 542-43 , 18 S.Ct. at 187 . Down through the years the Bram standard has been cited with approval and followed by the Supreme Court in Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1 , 84 S.Ct. 1489 , 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964); Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742 , 90 S.Ct. 1463 , 25 L.Ed.2d 747 (1970); Hutto v. Ross, 429 U.S. 28 , 98 S.Ct. 202 , 50 L.Ed.2d 194 (1976).””

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