Baker v. Wj Estelle’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 1 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““... Whatever the post-conviction consequences under Texas state law of a contention that the state failed (despite a minute entry to this effect) to produce evidence to support a plea of guilty, we do not read these decisions as holding that the state court’s acceptance of the plea, although erroneous, raised an issue of such total want of jurisdiction as to make the conviction void rather than voidable. “No federal constitutional issue is raised by the failure of the Texas state court to require evidence of guilt corroborating a voluntary plea. In this circuit, we have specifically held that the petitioner in a habeas corpus proceeding is not deprived of any federally protected right by a conviction upon a plea of guilty obtained without compliance with the Texas statute. Hendrick v. Beto, 360 F.2d 618 (5th Cir.1966), aff'd 253 F.Supp. 994 (S.D.Tex.1965). Because the right to corroboration of a plea of guilty is not essential to a fair trial in a federal due-process sense, the failure to comply with the state criminal procedure in this regard does not raise a federal constitutional claim that justifies habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 . Hendrick, supra, 253 F.Supp. at 995 . “Therefore, we find no merit to Baker’s claim that his 1965 burglary conviction was void because the state court was without jurisdiction to entertain the 1965 plea of guilty.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ex Parte Williams · Smith v. Ol McCotter