Gholston v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 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 1 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The state cannot compel a defendant to stand trial while dressed in prison clothes. Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501 , 96 S.Ct. 1691 , 48 L.Ed.2d 126 (1976). There, the Supreme Court stated that ‘the State cannot, consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment, compel an accused to stand trial before a jury while dressed in identifiable prison clothes.... ’ 425 U.S. at 513 [ 96 S.Ct. at 1697 ], However, not every instance where a defendant stands trial in prison garb is a per se violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, because of the harmless error rule. This court, in interpreting Estelle v. Williams, has ruled in several cases that the defendant is not prejudiced by wearing prison clothing at trial where the evidence would necessarily and unavoidably inform the jury of the defendant’s status as an inmate. George v. State, 423 So.2d 335 (Ala.Cr.App.1982); Jacques v. State, 409 So.2d 876 (Ala.Cr.App.1981), aff’d 409 So.2d 885 (Ala.1982).... [[Image here]] “The defendant in Jacques v. State, was being tried for escape from pris-on_ [T]he nature of the offense necessitates that the jury be informed of the defendant’s status as an inmate. In affirming Jacques’s conviction we wrote: “ ‘The defendant was not prejudiced by any failure on the part of the State to provide him with other clothes. In saying this, we do not recommend that even in such a case a convict should not be dressed with appropriate clothes throughout his trial, clothing distinctly different from his prison clothes.’”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 620 So. 2d 719 - Gholston v. State