Currin v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"Peremptory challenges, by enabling each side to exclude those jurors it believes will be most partial toward the other side, are a means of eliminat{ing] extremes of partiality on both sides, thereby assuring the selection of a qualified and unbiased jury." . Moreover, "[the essential nature of the peremptory challenge is that it is one exercised without a reason stated, without inquiry and without being subject to the court's control." ... Indeed, often a reason for it cannot be stated, for a trial lawyer's judgments about a juror's sympathies are sometimes based on experienced hunches and educated guesses, derived from a juror's ... "bare looks and gestures." _... That a trial lawyer's instine-tive assessment of a juror's predisposition cannot meet the high standards of a challenge for cause does not mean that the lawyer's instinet is erroneous.... Our belief that experienced lawyers will often correctly intuit which jurors are likely to be the least sympathetic, and our understanding that the lawyer will often be unable to explain his intuition, are the very reason we cherish the peremptory challenge.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Koo v. State · Pfister v. State

2. “Court: We probably ought to make a ree-ord here by agreement, while our memories are fresh on this challenge. The defense peremptory challenge to Mr. Moody, who was the only black juror on the venire[ 4 ] There's been a motion filed by the defendant indicating that I had not indicated anything about why I had refused his peremptory challenge, that is absolutely wrong. He was the only black on the panel and I expressly stated that and if that didn't make the record, that we were doing it at sidebar, that is the reason why I refused to [sic] challenge. On the face of it he is entitled to be challenged for a nonracial reason. What the cases on appeal seem to overlook is that black defendants strike black jurors as readily as they do whites. Automatically assume that racial reason means it has to be of the opposite race and that's absolutely not true. Experienced defense counsel strike mature blacks, if they have a black defendant for a client, more readily than they would strike anyone else. Defense: I don't know about that. Court: That is the basis for the Court's determination that the original reason for the peremptory, since he was the only black on the jury, was for racial reasons, thus creating a necessity for the defendant to express a nonracial reason for striking, which is, or was- Defense: His comments about his prior jury service his feelings about that, his characterization of the opposing jurors and a mistrial as being looking for excuses. Then asked again about tha”

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

3. “In Batson the [Supreme Court] observed that the discriminatory use of peremptory challenges harms the prospective jurors and undermines the public confidence in the fairness of our system of justice. Consequently, a juror may not be denied the right to participate in jury service based merely on the juror’s race or ethnic identity. It is of no consequence that the challenged prospective juror is of the same race as or ethnic identity as the challenger. The question is whether the peremptory challenge is being used to remove a prospective juror on prohibited grounds ....”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Baker