Sharp v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 462 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 465 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Appellant is correct in his assertion that everything necessary to be proven to sustain a conviction in the guilt/innocence phase must be alleged in an indictment. However, the special issues of Art. 37.071, supra, are not an element of the offense of capital murder; Art. 37.071 relates only to punishment. While the indictment must allege everything necessary to be proven to sustain a conviction, it need not state more.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Barber v. State · Garcia v. State

2. ““We therefore take this opportunity to clarify our decision in Witherspoon and to reaffirm the above-quoted standard from Adams as the proper standard for determining when a prospective juror may be excluded for cause because of his or her views on capital punishment. That standard is whether the juror’s views would ‘prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath.’ We note that, in addition to dispensing with Witherspoon’s reference to ‘automatic’ decisionmaking, this standard likewise does not require that a juror’s bias be proved with ‘unmistakable clarity.’ This is because determinations of juror bias cannot be reduced to question-and-answer sessions which obtain results in the manner of a catechism. What common sense should have realized experience has proved: many veniremen simply cannot be asked enough questions to reach the point where their bias has been made ‘unmistakably clear’; these veniremen may not know how they will react when faced with imposing the death sentence, or may be unable to articulate, or may wish to hide their true feelings. Despite this lack of clarity in the printed record, however, there will be situations where the trial judge is left with the definite impression that a prospective juror ivould be unable to faithfully and impartially apply the law. For reasons that will be developed more fully infra, this is why deference must be paid to the trial judge who sees and hear”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Briddle v. State · Carter v. State

3. “... To show harm in this situation, the accused must first at some point run out of challenges, have requested and been denied additional challenges, and then show that he was harmed by being forced to take a later, prospective juror whom he would have struck, but was unable to because he did not have the sufficient number of strikes to which he was entitled ...”

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