Engesser v. Dooley’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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “During Engesser’s trial, Trooper Fox was the only witness to testify that En-gesser was the driver of the Corvette. This assertion was not refuted by En-gesser’s attorney, who appeared to focus on the fact that the Corvette was stored outdoors, permitting any bodily fluids inside the Corvette to deteriorate. If Engesser’s attorney had interviewed Eckholm and Fowler, and called them as witnesses, their testimony would have directly contradicted Trooper Fox’s assertion that Engesser was the driver of the Corvette. The identity of the driver was the only issue at Engesser’s trial. If a factfinder were presented with Eck-holm’s and Fowler’s eyewitness testimony, no reasonable factfinder would have found Engesser guilty of the underlying offense. The only state court (Judge Macy) to have considered Eckholm’s and Fowler’s testimony and to weigh the testimony against the evidence presented at Engesser’s trial found that then-testimony would have changed the outcome of his trial. Moreover, Judge Macy reached this conclusion without the benefit of Syverson’s eyewitness testimony, which demonstrates even more clearly that “but for the constitutional error, no reasonable factfinder would have found [Engesser] guilty of the underlying offense.” 28 U.S.C. § 2244 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Engesser v. Young