United States v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
748 F.2d 1091 · 1984
Citation profile
16 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently January 2006
16 federal appellate · 2 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 3 · 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Davis v. Alaska · Pointer v. Texas · Irvin v. Dowd · California State Board of Equalization v. Western Marina Corp. · Alford v. United States
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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Once an individual juror indicates on voir dire a prior opinion about an impending criminal trial, the Constitution requires that the juror be seated only if the trial judge determines that the juror can lay aside his opinion and render a verdict based on the evidence presented in court. It is not required, nor can it be expected, that a juror be totally ignorant of the facts and issues involved in a criminal prosecution. “To hold the mere existence of any preconceived notion as to the guilt or innocence of an accused, without more, is sufficient to rebut the presumption of a prospective juror’s impartiality would be to establish an impossible standard.” Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. [717] at 723, 81 S.Ct. [1639] 1642-43 [ 6 L.Ed.2d 751 (1961)]. Rather, the trial judge must ascertain whether the juror is capable of putting aside his earlier views and reach a decision based only on the evidence presented at trial. Once such a determination has been made, it may not be overturned unless manifest error is shown. Moreover, the burden is on the defendant to show manifest error.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Only where a juror has indicated a refusal to consider the testimony or displayed evidence of a closed mind concerning a defendant's innocence can we say that a district court has abused its discretion in refusing to strike a juror for cause. The district court is better equipped than this Court to assess the inflections and nuances presented during a jury voir dire.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.