Spaugh v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 federal appellate · 1 district · 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““We deem it essential to the fair and impartial conduct of the trial, that the inquiry itself should he regarded as ground for reversal. Such procedure serves no useful purpose that cannot be attained by questions not requiring the jury to reveal the nature or extent of its division. Its effect upon a divided jury will- often depend upon -circumstances which cannot properly he known to the trial judge or to the appellate courts and may vary widely in different situations but in general its tendency is coercive. It can rarely be resorted to without bringing to bear in some degree, serious, although not measurable, an improper influence upon the jury, from whose deliberations every consideration other than that of the evidence and the law as expounded in a proper charge, should be' excluded. Such a practice, which is never useful and is generally harmful, is not 'to be sanctioned.” (Emphasis added.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cook v. United States