Ayala v. Wong’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate ·

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

1. “As far as [Robert M.] is concerned, Miss Michaels and I had discussions during the selection process here in court, even as late as immediately before the exercise of the last challenge. The court would note that I had passed at one point, leaving [Robert M.] on. I have always felt some degree of reluctance with regard to [Robert M.], and my concern primarily is in the area of whether, after conviction, [Robert M.] would actually vote for the death penalty, and it was my view that taking all of his responses in Hovey into account, and the — some of his responses even as late as yesterday — for example, the following of the Sagon Penn case. It was Miss Michaels doing the questioning at that time, and I did not actually — it would have been possibly a disadvantage or a disservice to inquire further as to his impressions about the Sagon Penn case. I’m concerned about that case because the fact that Mr. Penn, in a very notorious trial here, was found not guilty in a second trial, and allegations of misconduct with regard to the District Attorney’s office and the police were certainly rampant in that case. There’s really no way for me to inquire as to where [Robert M.] actually stood. As far as [Robert M.] is concerned, our scores, a combination of all the factors— Mr. Cameron graded [Robert M.] as a four, Miss Michaels had rated [Robert M.] as a five, and my score on him was four to a five, somewhere in that area. I had before doing any of the selection process, resolved that at ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ayala v. Wong

2. “I made an observation of [Gerardo] when he first entered the courtroom on the first day that the jurors were called into the area. At that time, he appeared to not fit in with anyone else. He was a standoffish type of individual. His dress and his mannerisms I felt were not in keeping with the other jurors. He indicated to us at the beginning that he was illiterate. Actually, his words were that he was illiterate, and that he therefore had the questionnaire translated to him, so that he could make responses. I observed him on subsequent occasions when he came to the court, and observed that he did not appear to be socializing or mixing with any of the other jurors, and I also take into account his responses on the questionnaire and in the Ho-vey questioning process, at which time he expressed that he had no feeling with regard to the death penalty in writing. When being questioned, he said that he was not sure if he could take someone’s life, or if he could take someone’s life into his hands. He further responded in the Hovey process that there would be eleven other people, that he felt a little shaky as far as his responsibilities in this case. For those reasons, I felt that he would be an inappropriate juror, and for that reason, I exercised the peremptory challenge.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ayala v. Wong

3. “permitted to serve” by the prosecution but ultimately struck by the defense. See, e.g., Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. at 244-45 , 125 S.Ct. 2317 (comparing a struck juror to a juror not challenged by the prosecution who was later challenged by the defense). This, of course, makes perfect sense: some of these jurors were not struck by the defense until after the prosecution had passed them for several rounds, and the”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Ayala v. Wong