Tsiosdia v. Rainaldi’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. “"Implicit in this interpretation is that the judge is the guardian of the rights of the defendant. However, our legal system is primarily of an adversary nature, and the guardianship of the defendant's rights lies chiefly with his attorney, not the judge. Rights not asserted by the defendant's attorney generally are waived. Furthermore, it is not the function of the judge to second guess the tactics or strategies of the defendant's attorney at each step of the defense of an accused. The judge's major function is to determine which of two espoused viewpoints — the attorney's or the prosecutor's — is applicable to the facts of the case before him. An unbiased and reasonably intelligent person should be able to choose fairly between such espoused viewpoints. Fairness in this context is not critically dependent upon the judge being a member of the bar; a judge must have wisdom and common sense which are at least as dependable as an education in guaranteeing the defendant a fair trial. As with district court judges, as a last resort the appellate process is able to correct the mistakes of law of a municipal court judge. We therefore hold that fairness is not so inextricably tied to the education of an attorney that without such an education a municipal court judge cannot be fair." (Footnotes omitted.) Tsiosdia v. Rainaldi, 89 N.M. 70 , 547 P.2d 553, 555 (1976).”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Canaday v. State · State v. Davis