Booker v. Jabe’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

46 federal appellate · 23 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 79 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “mirror the community and reflect the various distinctive groups in the population”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. United States v. Jerry L. Perdue, Also Known as Mark Paul Gordon · United States v. Ronald Lee Morse, A/K/A Lord Lebaron C. Penndergrass

2. ““A prohibition upon the exclusion of cognizable groups through peremptory challenges has no conceivable basis in the text of the Sixth Amendment, is without support in our prior decisions, and would undermine rather than further the constitutional guarantee of an impartial jury- ****** [T]o say that the Sixth Amendment deprives the State of the ability to ‘stack the deck’ in its favor is not to say that each side may not, once a fair hand is dealt, use peremptory challenges to eliminate prospective jurors belonging to groups it believes would unduly favor the other side. Any theory of the Sixth Amendment leading to that result is implausible. The tradition of peremptory challenges for both the prosecution and the accused was already venerable at the time of Blackstone ... was reflected in a federal statute enacted by the same Congress that proposed the Bill of Rights ... was recognized in an opinion by Justice Story to be part of the common law of the United States ... and has endured through two centuries in all the States.... The constitutional phrase ‘impartial jury’ must surely take its content from this unbroken tradition. ****** The rule we announce today is not only the only plausible reading of the text of the Sixth Amendment, but we think it best furthers the Amendment’s central purpose as well. Although the constitutional guarantee runs only to the individual and not to the State, the goal it expresses is jury impartiality with respect to both contestants: neither t”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Bell v. Baker

3. “If the trial court finds that the non-moving party’s explanation of its use of peremptory challenges does not rebut the moving party’s prima facie case of a Sixth Amendment violation, the judge will declare a mistrial, and a new jury will be selected from prospective jurors who were not previously associated with the case.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. State Ex Rel. Skeen v. Tunnell