90 Md. App. 31 - Mejia v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Except for counsel’s self-serving ipse dixit in this regard, however, there was no basis for such a conclusion with respect to the rest of the panel. From the jurors, including alternates, who were accepted or challenged, we can comb the record and come up with the surnames of 28 members of the 50-person panel. With respect to the other 22, however, there is nothing in the record to give us even the surnames, let alone any information beyond the names. For all we know, they may all have had Spanish surnames. Again, the burden of making a record was upon the appellant.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 108 Md. App. 435 - Ball v. Martin · Mejia v. State

2. ““... we would be reduced, as rank ethnological amateurs, to playing guessing games based upon surnames, even as trial counsel and the trial judge, had they chosen to indulge, would have been reduced to such rankly amateurish speculation ... If required to engage in such a game, however, one might conclude that the prosecution struck one woman, Ms. LaGrange, whose surname (or husband’s surname) suggests a possible French, French Canadian, or Cajun background; one man, Mr. Pakkiana-than, whose surname suggests a possible Pakistani or Indian background; a second man, Mr. Estrada, whose surname suggests a possible European Spanish, European Portuguese, Hispanic, Brazilian, or Filipino background; and a third man, Mr. Lehman, whose surname suggests a possible German Jewish background. If Batson v. Kentucky were allowed to run amok, the prosecutor might be called upon, we suggest, to give a racially neutral, ethnically neutral, religiously neutral, and gender neutral explanation for any or all of these merely arguable possibilities.””

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

3. “[The Petitioner’s Counsel]: ... We have an Hispanic defendant charged with raping a non-Hispanic or white woman. There is only one Hispanic person on the jury panel. The State has used its strike to strike that person. ... [A] racially motivated strike that is taking out the only Hispanic juror in a panel of 50 people.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 108 Md. App. 435 - Ball v. Martin