Hardwick v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district ·

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

1. “In 2004, petitioner married Alice’s mother and moved into her home. Petitioner’s adult nephew, Matthew, also stayed at the house occasionally. Peggy testified that in July 2005, when she was thirteen years old, she spent the night at Alice’s house. Late in the evening, she, Alice, Matthew, and petitioner were in the living room. Matthew was sleeping on the sofa while petitioner played on the computer. Peggy and Alice saw that petitioner was watching pornography. Noticing that the girls were looking at the computer screen, petitioner asked whether they liked what they saw. He then offered to teach Peggy how to do the acts portrayed in the pornography and invited the girls into the basement to look at Playboy magazines. According to Peggy, the girls agreed. Peggy alleged that,,in the basement, petitioner and the two girls engaged in a variety of sexual acts. Peggy also testified about another sexual incident that took place shortly thereafter at a townhouse in Delaware City involving her, petitioner, and Matthew, as well as numerous occurrences of group .sex involving petitioner, Matthew, and the two girls. According to Peggy, she had sex with petitioner at least twenty times on various occasions and she consented to all of those sexual encounters with petitioner. Alice, who was twelve in the summer of 2005, also testified at trial. She corroborated Peggy’s testimony' about the inci dent in her basement when Peggy and her stepfather first had sex, although she testified that on”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hardwick v. Pierce

2. “[d]efense counsel attempted to secure Matthew’s appearance at trial and gave him a subpoena; however, defense counsel did not subpoena Matthew pursuant to 11 Del.' Code § 3523, which would have required Matthew to appear under penalty of law. The State has yet to decide if it will charge Matthew. Although the State did not charge Matthew, based on Peggy's allegations, the trial judge appointed counsel to represent him. Matthew did not appear at trial. Defense counsel twice asked the trial judge for permission to make a missing witness argument to the jury. During the first discussion, the trial judge noted his concerns about -jury speculation, the 403 balancing test, and Matthew’s Fifth Amend-, ment right. When defense counsel reintroduced his argument for a missing witness' instruction, the trial judge ruled that, under the circumstances, Matthew's nonappearance could not be used against the State and any missing witness argument was inappropriate.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hardwick v. Pierce

3. “During the police investigation, Detective Rubin of the Newark Police Department interrogated Matthew, the only other individual with information regarding the allegations. During that interrogation, Matthew claimed that petitioner and he did not commit the alleged sexual acts. The State taped that interview and sent it to defense counsel. The defense hired a defense investigator to interview Matthew.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hardwick v. Pierce