Collins v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. “Although the State correctly points out that "trial courts ... have broad discretion in the procedural conduct of trials," Moore v. State, 701 So.2d 545, 549 (Fla. 1997), the state has cited, and a search of Florida case law has revealed, no case which requires a trial court to instruct the jury on the reasons for the unavailability of a witness. In this case, the trial court could easily have advised the jury of Queen's unavailability for cross-examination without mentioning the reasons for his unavailability. Had the trial court been concerned about any improper inferences the jury might draw from the unavailability of the witness, it could have instructed the jury to simply draw no inferences from the witness' unavailability. Instead, the trial court advised the jurors of a highly prejudicial incident which had occurred outside their presence and which really had no bearing on their determination of appellant's guilt or innocence. The trial court, therefore, abused its discretion by instructing the jury in the manner it did on the reason why Queen was unavailable for cross-examination. See Clayton v. Commonwealth, 786 S.W.2d 866, 868 (Ky.1990)("The only instruction regarding the absence of the witness which could have been given, had it been requested, was one stating that he was unavailable to either side.").”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cunningham v. State