Sial v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Here, Sial testified that he has a wife and a thirteen-year-old daughter. Inas much as Sial has been in the United States for over twenty years, we infer that his daughter was likely born here and, consequently, would be an American citizen. If deported, Sial would be forced either to leave his wife and child behind or to uproot them from this country — most likely the only home his daughter has ever known. We believe that these are sufficient special circumstances and specific facts to establish a reasonable probability that if Sial’s attorney had advised him that deportation is a possible consequence of a felony conviction, Sial would have chosen to proceed to trial rather than to plead guilty.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mark Clarke v. State of Indiana · Trujillo v. State

2. “[T]he failure to advise of the consequence of deportation can, under some circumstances, constitute deficient performance. Otherwise stated, we cannot say that this failure as a matter of law never constitutes deficient performance. Whether it is deficient in a given case is fact sensitive and turns on a number of factors. These presumably include the knowledge of the lawyer of the client's status as an alien, the client’s familiarity with the consequences of conviction, the severity of criminal penal consequences, and the likely subsequent effects of deportation. Other factors undoubtedly will be relevant in given circumstances.”

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

3. “The appropriate determination is not whether [the defendant] ultimately would have been convicted following a trial, but rather whether there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's errors,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Morones-Quinonez