Sills v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The State argues Chambers’s statement subjected him to appellant’s hatred and retaliation. Logically, it can be argued that any statement made by a declarant against another will subject the declarant to hatred and retaliation by the person or persons the statement implicates. The State does not refer us to any case law that supports this type of broad argument. To be admissible, a statement against interest that makes the declarant the object of hatred, ridicule, or disgrace must be in the context of the declarant’s social interests, such as a confession by a small-town minister of homosexual conduct, Purtell v. State, 761 S.W.2d 360, 369 (Tex.Crim.App. 1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1059 , 109 S.Ct. 1972 , 104 L.Ed.2d 441 (1989), or a statement by a husband that he was responsible for an automobile accident whereby his wife became a paraplegic. Robinson v. Harkins & Co., 711 S.W.2d 619, 621 (Tex.1986). If the State’s broad argument was accepted then virtually every statement a declarant made against another would be admissible. We do not find Chambers was subject to hatred, ridicule, or disgrace at the time of making the statement such that his statement was against his interest.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Kennedy v. State · Miles v. State

2. “[A] reviewing court in applying the harmless error rule should not focus upon the propriety of the outcome of the trial. Instead, an appellate court should be concerned with the integrity of the process leading to the conviction. Consequently the court should examine the source of the error, the nature of the error, whether or to what extent it was emphasized by the State, and its probable collateral implications. Further, the court should consider how much weight a juror would probably place upon the error. In addition, the Court must also determine whether declaring the error harmless would encourage the State to repeat it with impunity. In summary, the reviewing court should focus not on the weight of the other evidence of guilt, but rather on whether the error at issue might possibly have prejudiced the jurors’ decision-making; _”

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