Dunn v. Simmons’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 federal appellate · 14 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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Although the Dunn procedure ostensibly permits the use of the presumption only to satisfy a burden of production, in reality it may be utilized by the state to carry its ultimate burden of persuasion. That is because, if the defendant offers no rebuttal, the state will prevail; the presumption becomes a substitute for evidence supplementing the conviction record. The practical effect of the Dunn procedure, then, is to allow the state to prevail by carrying its burden of persuasion upon the bare record of the fact that a conviction was entered against the defendant. This result ignores the Supreme Court’s admonition in Boykin against presuming a waiver from a silent record and, it offends this Court’s requirement in Roddy, since, when the state is said to have made out a bare prima facie case, and it has done so only by relying upon a presumption, the state cannot be said to have met its burden of persuasion by supplementing an inadequate record with clear and convincing evidence. Dunn, supra, at page 1278.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Conklin v. Commonwealth

2. “In any proceeding instituted in a Federal court by an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court, a determination after a hearing on the merits of a factual issue, made by a State court of competent jurisdiction in a proceeding to which the applicant for the writ and the State or an officer of agent thereof were parties, evidenced by a written finding, written opinion, or other reliable and adequate written indicia, shall be presumed to be correct unless the applicant shall establish or it shall appear, or the respondent shall admit ... (8) or unless that part of the record of the State court proceeding in which the determination of such factual issue was made, pertinent to a determination of the sufficiency of the evidence to support such factual determination, is produced ... and the Federal court on a consideration of such part of the record as a whole concludes that such factual determination is not fairly supported by the record”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Garcia v. Johnson

3. “If the discussion between defendant and trial judge at the time of a plea’s acceptance leaves doubt as to whether a plea was in fact voluntary and intelligent, however, a defendant is not automatically entitled to a reversal of his conviction. Rather, in that circumstance if a defendant argues in a post-conviction proceeding that his plea was entered without his consent or without an understanding of the plea’s nature and consequences, Boykin places a burden on the State to prove the contrary. A habeas court may not “presume a waiver of [a defendant’s] federal rights from a silent record.” The State must prove that the defendant’s guilty plea was voluntary and intelligent, and to do so it may introduce evidence extrinsic to the transcript of the plea’s acceptance. In the face of an inadequate transcript at the time of a guilty plea’s acceptance, the State must make a clear and convincing showing that the plea was in fact knowingly and understandingly entered.”

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