State v. Thomas’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. ““The Supreme Court obviously did not want to entrust to anyone other than the court the extremely important determination that a defendant’s plea was voluntarily and knowingly made. The best way to ascertain that a defendant was acting voluntarily with sufficient knowledge and awareness was for the court, personally in open court while the defendant stood before it, to inform the defendant of his or her rights and then to determine whether the defendant waived those rights and understood the nature of the proceeding. Although a writing can inform an individual of his or her rights, the court cannot determine that the individual truly understands those rights unless it follows Rule 24.02’s mandate that it inform the individual of those rights personally in open court.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Timothy Cafferty v. State of Missouri