Dolchok v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
26 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently September 2020 · most notably 173 W. Va. 658 - Myers v. Frazier (1984), State v. Jones (1988)
26 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Chapman v. State of California · Kotteakos v. United States · Brady v. United States · Santobello v. New York · Burks v. United States
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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The defendant must have some minimum ability to provide his counsel with information necessary or relevant to his defense. He must also be able to understand the nature of the proceedings sufficiently to participate in certain decisions about the conduct of the defense. Some strategic choices must be the product of meaningful communication between the defendant and his counsel. But this does not mean that a defendant must possess any high degree of legal sophistication or intellectual prowess. In determining competency, the standard of judgment must be a relative one. Some comparison must be made between the apparent competency of the accused and the ability level of the average criminal defendant. That level of ability is often not great. Numerous persons are subjected to criminal prosecution, and properly so, even though they are of relatively low intelligence or are suffering from some significant emotional or physical impairment. Not every emotional flaw renders one incompetent to stand trial.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. McCarlo v. State“Presence: Required. The defendant shall be present at the arraignment, at the preliminary hearing, at the time of plea, at the omnibus hearing, and at every stage of the trial, including the impaneling of the jury and return of the verdict, and at the imposition of sentence, except as otherwise provided in this rule.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Raphael v. State“[D]efense counsel’s evaluation of his own performance is more a reflection of his dedication to his representation of clients, and remorse at the disappointing result obtained in this case, than it is an objective assessment of his work in representing Dolchok.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Jones
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.