Tapp v. Lucas’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 3 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “a common sense solution to the problem of avoiding yet another trial for prosecution and defense.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 687 F. Supp. 1089 - Buffington v. Copeland · Mathews v. Marshall

2. “Under the Burks line of cases, however, reversal for insufficient evidence is to be distinguished from reversal for trial error. The Court made clear in Burks and its companion case, Greene v. Massey, 437 U.S. 19, 25-26 , 98 S.Ct. 2151, 2155 , 57 L.Ed.2d 15, 22 (1978), that where convictions are based on errors made in the course of the trial rather than on the government’s failure to offer sufficient proof to sustain the conviction, the double jeopardy clause does not preclude retrial. Neither Greene nor Burks decided the more difficult question whether a second trial is improper when the legally competent evidence at the first trial was insufficient to sustain a conviction. See Greene v. Massey, supra, 437 U.S. at 26 & n. 9, 98 S.Ct. at 2155 & n. 9, 57 L.Ed.2d at 22 & n. 9. Tapp seeks to raise in this case the issue pretermitted in Burks and Greene . He notes the Mississippi Supreme Court’s statement that ‘[w]ithout the wife’s testimony, the record on the first trial of this case would not sustain a conviction’, ... and concludes that his conviction was reversed because the legally competent evidence was insufficient. In remanding Tapp’s case for the second time, however, the Mississippi Supreme Court observed that the first reversal ‘was based on trial error and not insufficiency of evidence’. Tapp v. State, 373 So.2d 1029, 1031 (Miss.1979). Under Fifth Circuit precedent in Greene v. Massey, this dictum is conclusive evidence that the first reversal was based on trial erro”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 687 F. Supp. 1089 - Buffington v. Copeland

3. “[wjithout the wife’s testimony, the record on the first trial of this case would not sustain a conviction. However, since that testimony is incompetent, the case will be reversed and remanded for a new trial upon such other evidence as the State may be able to present.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 687 F. Supp. 1089 - Buffington v. Copeland