State v. Harding’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

20 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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(1) A person is not guilty of an offense when he engaged in the proscribed conduct because he was coerced to do so by the use or threatened imminent use of unlawful physical force upon him or a third person, which force or threatened force a person of reasonable firmness in his situation would not have resisted.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Tuttle · 2019 UT App 27 - State v. Rivera

2. “The right [to a public trial] evolved out of the early history of the law when the courts of England, as well as in our own country prior to our Revolutionary War, refused to permit the accused, in many instances, to be publicly tried. The flagrant abuse of the courts of that early time undoubtedly impressed upon the founders of our form of government, both national and state, the necessity of making provision in our fundamental laws that all persons accused with the commission of public crime shall have a public trial. As to what constitutes a public trial in a given case has given rise to much legal discussion, and upon that important question the decisions of the courts are not altogether harmonious. It may be said, however, that this constitutional right has been jealously guarded and adhered to by both the federal and the state courts. Aside from the inherent power of every court, in rare instances, to exclude a part of the public, as in such extreme cases where its presence would interfere with the due and orderly procedure in the progress of the trial, or where the testimony is of such a character as to shock the sense of decency or tend to degrade the public morals, more especially those of the young, the exclusion of the public should be, and generally is, held to be violative of the constitutional rights of the accused.”

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

3. “As indicated in [State v. Jordan ], the defendant’s right to a public trial is not without limitation. His right must be balanced against other interests which may justify the closing of the courtroom. One of those interests is the safety of those who may be present therein.... Exclusion of the public from the courtroom where violence might be expected must be governed by the sound discretion of the trial judge based upon the facts and circumstances confronting him. This discretion, however, should be sparingly exercised and limited to those situations where necessary to further the administration of justice.”

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