989 So. 2d 372 - Howell v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In the early morning hours of May 15, 2000, Hugh David Pernell, a newspaper cai’rier, was shot and killed in his car on Broad Street in New Albany while running his newspaper route. The shooting occurred in front of Charles Rice’s house. Rice would later tell law enforcement that he had heard two cars on the street in front of his house at around five o’clock in the morning. He looked out his window and saw two vehicles, one behind the other, stopped in the street. A man exited the rear car and approached the driver’s side window of the front vehicle. After some commotion, the man pulled a pistol and shot the driver of the front vehicle. The shooter then got back in the passenger seat of the rear vehicle and left the scene. Per-nell suffered a single gunshot wound to the chest and died at the scene. Rice immediately called 911 and reported the shooting and later told law enforcement officers that the shooter was a young black male who had fled the scene in a late model, dark-colored Oldsmobile. Law enforcement officers received an anonymous tip that Curtis Lipsey was involved in the murder. The investigation revealed that Lipsey, Adam Ray, and Marlon Howell had been riding around together throughout the previous night and the early morning hours of the day of the shooting. Ray’s grandmother owned a dark Oldsmobile Cutlass. Upon questioning, Ray and Lipsey implicated Howell. Howell was arrested and claimed that he had no involvement in the murder. Howell told officers that he ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 163 So. 3d 240 - Marlon Latodd Howell v. State of Mississippi

2. “In the direct appeal of Howell’s capital-murder conviction and death sentence, we held that Rice’s identification of Howell was reliable and that the jury was entitled to weigh the credibility of the evidence. Howell, 860 So.2d at 731 . Unquestionably, Rice’s testimony was crucial to the State’s case. The State admitted as much in closing argument when the prosecutor stated that the State could have rested after Rice testified. After reviewing Rice’s trial testimony, the 2005 affidavit in which he partially recanted his identification of Howell, and the 2007 affidavit in which he reaffirmed his trial testimony, we find that Howell has shown that he is entitled to a post-conviction hearing on this issue. This issue can be resolved by the trial judge, who will have an opportunity not only to hear Rice’s testimony, but also to observe Rice’s demeanor as Rice is subjected to both direct examination and cross-examination. This also is certainly true of other witnesses who might testify on this issue.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 163 So. 3d 240 - Marlon Latodd Howell v. State of Mississippi

3. “[I]t is established that a conviction obtained through use of false evidence, known to be such by representatives of the State, must fall under the Fourteenth Amendment.... The same re■sult obtains when the State, although not soliciting false evidence, allows it to go uncorreeted when it appears. The principle that a State may not knowingly use false evidence, including false testimony, to obtain a tainted conviction, implicit in any concept of ordered liberty, does not cease to apply merely because the false testimony goes only to the credibility of the witness. The jury’s estimate of the truthfulness and reliability of a given witness may well be determinative of guilt or innocence, and it is upon such subtle factors as the possible interest of the witness in testifying falsely that a defendant’s life or liberty may depend.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 163 So. 3d 240 - Marlon Latodd Howell v. State of Mississippi