Barrera v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

27 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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “the failure to apply the law of a case to its facts does not amount to a federal constitutional error, but is merely a “technical violation of [a] state-law rule.” Brown v. Collins, 937 F.2d 175, 182 (5th Cir.), rehearing en banc denied, 945 F.2d 403 (1991). This conclusion naturally follows from federal decisions which have concluded that “[njormally ... instructions to the jury in state trials are matters of state law and procedure not involving federal constitutional issues.” United States ex. rel. Waters v. Bensinger, 507 F.2d 103, 105 (7th Cir.1974) (quoting Grundler v. North Carolina, 283 F.2d 798, 802 (4th Cir.1960)). Federal courts considering habeas petitions have announced narrow guidelines for jury charge error that offends the federal constitution: [W]hen reviewing a jury charge for constitutional infirmity, we must consider the challenged portion of the charge not “in artificial isolation,” but rather “in the context of the overall charge.” Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141, 146-47 , 94 S.Ct. 396, 400 , 38 L.Ed.2d 368 (1973). A constitutional violation occurs only if “[t]here is a reasonable likelihood that the jury understood the instructions to allow conviction on proof insufficient to meet the Winship standard.” 4 Victor v. Nebraska, 511 U.S. 1, 6 , 114 S.Ct. 1239, 1243 , 127 L.Ed.2d 583 (1994). Justice v. Hoke, 45 F.3d 33, 34 (2nd Cir.1995). A trial court’s failure to apply an otherwise correct defensive jury instruction does not give rise to such a likelihood.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Escobar v. State

2. “In Malik v. State, we overruled the line of Texas cases that had held that the jury charge absolutely controls an appellate court’s assessment of evidentiary sufficiency (the so-called Benson/Boozer doctrine). We instead concluded that the proper measure of sufficient evidence was the “hypothetically correct jury charge”: Such a charge would be one that accurately sets out the law, is authorized by the indictment, does not unnecessarily increase the State’s burden of proof or unnecessarily restrict the State’s theories of liability, and adequately describes the particular offense for which the defendant was tried. [Malik, 953 S.W.2d at 240]. We pointed to authorities which had signaled the decline of the importance of the application paragraph of a charge, as well; for example, we acknowledged our recent observation that “it may well be that application paragraphs are an anachronism, and that jurors could perform just as well without them.” Id. at 238 (quoting Plata v. State, 926 S.W.2d 300, 304 (Tex.Crim.App.1996)).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Fowler v. State

3. “[A]ppellant neither requested a self-defense charge nor objected to the charge as given. Therefore, we remand this cause to the court of appeals to ... conduct an 'egregious harm' analysis under Almanza .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Mendez v. State