Sahagian v. Murphy’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 federal appellate · 2 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Because the defendant chose to refuse the usual remedy for the temporary unavailability of a witness and offered no substantial justification for that refusal, he cannot be allowed to complain because, as a result of his own choice, a temporary unavailability became, as a practical matter, a permanent one. As a general proposition, it is true that, “if a choice presented to a petitioner is constitutionally offensive, then the choice cannot be voluntary.” Wilks v. Israel, 627 F.2d 32, 36 (7th Cir.1980), ce rt. denied, 449 U.S. 1086 , 101 S.Ct. 874 , 66 L.Ed.2d 811 (1981). However, [the defendant] was not put to such a choice. As far as we can ascertain on this record, had he not insisted, without any compelling reason, on immediate trial, the state trial judge could have accommodated quite easily both his right to confront the witness against him and the need to resolve the criminal charges with reasonable dispatch. The tactical decision to insist on immediate trial rather than accept the usual remedy for the temporary unavailability of a witness was made by Mr. Sahagian’s counsel. There is no hint in the record that Mr. Sahagian disagreed with that decision. Indeed, there is some indication that he affirmatively concurred. He cannot now complain of the consequences of that decision.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Bagshaw