People v. Doe’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 federal appellate · 4 district · 21 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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “It would be difficult to think of a situation which more strikingly embodies the intimate and confidential relationship which exists among family members than that in which a troubled young person, perhaps beset with remorse and guilt, turns for counsel and guidance to his mother and father. There is nothing more natural, more consistent with our concept of the parental role, than that a child may rely on his parents for help and advice. Shall it be said to those parents, “Listen to your son at the risk of being compelled to testify about his confidences?” 6 [T]here can be no doubt what the effect on that relationship would be if the state could compel parents to disclose information given to them in the context of that confidential setting. Surely the thought of the State forcing a mother and father to reveal their child’s alleged misdeeds, as confessed to them in private, to provide the basis for criminal charges is shocking to our sense of decency, fairness and propriety. It is inconsistent with the way of life we cherish and guard so carefully and raises the specter of a regime which encourages betrayal of one’s offspring. And if, as seems likely, the parents refuse to divulge the child’s confidences, the alternatives faced by the parents, i.e., risk of prosecution for contempt or commission of perjury, could seriously undermine public trust in our system of justice. The course of constitutional law is filled with instances wherein the interests of the State in achieving ”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 36 Va. App. 448 - Belmer v. Commonwealth · 170 Ill. App. 3d 106 - People v. Kirkman

2. “Notwithstanding the absence of a statutory privilege, we may, nevertheless, draw from the principles of privileged communications in determining in what manner the protection of the Constitution should be extended to the child-parent communication.... We conclude ... that communications made by a minor child to his parents within the context of the family relationship may, under some circumstances, lie within the ’private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.’”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. In re Grand Jury

3. “The parents could properly be asked ... whether their son was at home on the night in question; if he was not, the time he left and returned. The answers to such questions would not be protected inasmuch as they do not fall within the ambit of confidential communications or observations.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 949 F. Supp. 1487 - In Re Grand Jury Proceedings, Unemancipated Minor Child