State v. Durrett’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “When determining whether a defendant’s due process rights have been violated by the State’s failure to preserve evidence, we must first decide whether the evidence is potentially useful evidence or material exculpatory evidence. Evidence is materially exculpatory if it possesses an exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed, and is of such a nature that the defendant would be unable -to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably available means. Exculpatory evidence is defined as evidence tending to establish a criminal defendant’s innocence. A prosecutor’s duty to preserve exculpatory evidence is limited to evidence that might be‘expected to play a significant role in the defendant’s defense. Failure to preserve material exculpatory evidence violates due process regardless of whether the State acted in good or bad faith'. Evidence is merely potentially useful if no more can be said than that it could have been subjected to tests, the results of which might have exonerated the defendant. The State’s failure to preserve potentially useful evidence does not constitute a violation of due process rights unless the defendant shows bad faith on the part of the police.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Robert Seal v. State of Indiana