Dukes v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

71 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 72 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Dukes relies on Anderson v. City of Bessemer City for the proposition that appellate courts should be ‘extremely leery and circumspect’ of findings prepared by one party and accepted without change by the court. 470 U.S. 564, 572 , 105 S.Ct. 1504 , 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985). In Anderson, the United States Supreme Court criticized the practice of courts adopting verbatim the findings prepared by the prevailing party, particularly if the findings ‘have taken the form of conclusory statements unsupported by citation to the record.’ Id. As the Eighth Circuit explained in Bradley v. Maryland Casualty Co., the problem with verbatim adoption of one party’s findings is that it can make it more difficult to determine whether a court exercised its ‘own careful consideration of the evidence, of the witnesses, and of the entire case.’ 382 F.2d 415, 423 (8th Circuit 1967). We agree that it is preferable for a court to independently develop its own findings. Therefore, when we review a court’s verbatim adoption of one party’s proposed findings, we will heed how the findings were prepared when we conduct a careful and searching review of the record. We will devote special care ‘not in the test that we apply to a particular finding of fact— individual findings will only be reversed if clearly erroneous — but in the volume of evidence we sift in judging the correctness of such findings.... ’ Berger v. Iron Workers Reinforced Rodmen Local 201, 843 F.2d 1395, 1408 (D.C.Cir.1988) (emphasis removed)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Shonelle Andre Jackson v. State of Alabama.

2. “Now we get to the weakest evidence in the case. It’s Dukes’ ear, with two guys who pull up to a guy, and one of the men in the car say, “Give me your money” or try to rob him, Bennie Chaney. Clearly it would seem to be Mr. Dukes is aiding and abetting an attempted aggravated robbery of Bennie Chaney. Can you make the leap to him aiding and abetting an attempted intentional killing of Bennie Chaney during an attempted aggravated robbery? This gets complicated. Well, you may say there was an attempted aggravated robbery. And you may say that there was an aiding and abetting. But what evidence do you have that Steve Morrison intended to kill him?”

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

3. “(1) the court is reasonably well-satisfied that the testimony given by a material witness was false; (2) without the testimony, the jury might have reached a different conclusion; and (3) the party seeking the new trial was taken by surprise when the false testimony was given and was unable to meet it or did not know of its falsity until after the trial.”

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