Gentry v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

22 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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “1. His conduct, attitude, and manner while testifying; 2. His physical and mental capacity to have heard or seen that about which he testifies; 3. His ability to remember and to tell here in court what he has heard or seen; 4. His reputation for honesty and truthfulness or for dishonesty and untruthfulness; 5. Whether he has a bias or prejudice, an interest in the outcome of the trial, or any other motive for not telling the truth; and 6. Whether the facts he related are inherently believable or unbelievable. In evaluating witness credibility other facts are also important. 1. You should consider statements by a witness that are either consistent or inconsistent with testimony given in court. 2. If a witness admits to untruthfulness at some other time, you may consider that admission but you should take into account all the cireumstances surrounding it; for instance, whether it was a sworn statement, whether it was made under pressure, whether it was self-serving and whether it was an important or merely a minor misstatement. 3. If you conclude that a witness has willfully lied under oath about any material fact in this case you may distrust all of his testimony. On the other hand, if you think it is reliable, considering all the other evi-denee, you may still believe it. Differences between one witnesses' [sic] testimony and that of others, does not necessarily mean someone is untruthfal. Two persons who witness an incident may see or hear it differently, In resolving differ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hadden v. State

2. “In our system of justice, fairness and impartiality are produced, if at all, by operation of legal rules and by the assignment of adjudicatory responsibilities. Those who fashion these rules, including the legislative and judicial branches of government, may be expected to consider the efficacy of what they produce and to decide what rules and standards are necessary to achieve fairness in the system as a whole. When a procedural or eviden-tiary rule seems not to work well, or when it seems to produce unjust results, the remedy is to amend or repeal it. The harmless error rule does neither. It leaves the law fully intact, but authorizes appellate court judges to pardon the violation of any legal precept' constrained only by their personal views of fairness and justice.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 180 N.C. App. 1 - Stann v. Levine

3. “In other words, a witness's credibility is a quilt of many patches: demeanor, forthrightness, apparent motives, internal consistency of testimony, external consistency of testimony when compared to other witnesses' testimony, and plausibility of the witness's testimony in relation to the jury's combined life experiences. No one of these patches is a talisman for the jury; instead, it is in their interrelationship as perceived in the collective mind of the jurors that they have significance and effect. Probably, the whole is larger than the individual parts.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hadden v. State