McCrory v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

45 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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he term ‘interrogation’ under Miranda refers not only to express questioning, but also to any words or actions on the part of the police (other than those normally attendant to arrest and custody) that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect. The latter portion of this definition focuses primarily upon the perceptions of the suspect, rather than the intent of the , police. This focus reflects the fact that the Miranda safeguards were designed to vest a suspect in custody with an added measure of protection against coercive police practices, without regard to objective proof of the underlying intent of the police. A practice that the police should know is reasonably likely to evoke an incriminating response from a suspect thus amounts to interrogation. But, since the police surely cannot be held accountable for the unforeseeable results of their words or actions, the definition of interrogation can extend only to words or actions on the part of police officers that they should have known were reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Lara v. State · Wortham v. State

2. “A careful review of Miranda reminds us that its genesis was the Court’s “concern for the atmosphere of custodial interrogation of criminal suspects, in which no overt physical coercion nor patent psychological ploys have been applied.” Faulder v. State, 611 S.W.2d 630, 638 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), cert. denied 449 U.S. 874 , 101 S.Ct. 215 , 66 L.Ed.2d 95 (1980). Citing “psychologically oriented” interrogation, which is characterized by isolation, the assumption of guilt, minimization of the moral seriousness of the offense, blaming the victim or society, persistence, domination, alteration of interrogators who are respectively hostile then friendly, and, if all else fails, trickery, the Supreme Court observed the intent of this “modem practice” is to dissuade the exercise of the rights to silence and counsel. Reasoning that “incommunicado interrogation” is at odds guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, unless adequate protective devices are employed to dispel “the compulsion inherent in custodial surroundings,” the Court felt compelled to hold: “In order to combat [pressures which work to undermine the individual’s will to resist and to compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely] and to permit a full opportunity to exercise the privilege against self-incrimination, the accused must be adequately and effectively apprised of his rights and the exercise of those rights must be fully honored.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. White v. State

3. ““Circumstances distinguish this case from one in which a general investigation into an unsolved crime is shown, [citations omitted]; neither do we have statements made during a general on the scene investigatory process, [citation omitted]; nor is this a case in which the appellant was affirmatively informed that he was not under arrest or, in fact, permitted to leave the company of the officers to go about his business [citations omitted].””

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