Lyons v. Ol McCotter’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 federal appellate · 15 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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “prejudicial and clearly inadmissible evidence”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Parmer v. State · Donald v. State

2. “... To pass over the admission of prejudicial and arguably inadmissible evidence may be strategic; to pass over the admission of prejudicial and clearly inadmissible evidence, as here, has no strategic value. ... As we said in Nero v. Blackburn, 597 F.2d 991 (5th Cir.1979) (failure of defense counsel to request a mistrial), [w]e can hardly imagine anything more prejudicial to Nero than allowing the jury in his armed robbery case to hear the prosecutor's comments that Nero had been convicted twice before of burglary and once on drug charges. The jury may well have convicted Nero of the charged offense because it was aware of his prior convictions. 597 F.2d at 994 . Similarly, here there could be no strategic basis for allowing the jury to hear that Lyons previously had been convicted of the same offense for which he stood trial.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ex Parte Menchaca

3. “[t]he doctrines of harmless and plain error as stated in Rule 52 apply to Rule 33 motions”). 4 . As we stated in Lyons v. McCotter, 770 F.2d 529 , 532 (5th Cir.1985): “The prejudice required by the second part of the Strickland test is something considerably more than the possibility that an unreasonable error by counsel might have had some effect on the trial.” 5 . Of course,”

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