Duest v. Singletary’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 federal appellate · 5 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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Spivey v. Head · Moon v. Head

2. “substantially influence[d] the verdict, or, at least, [if] a grave doubt exist[ed] as to whether it did.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Spivey v. Head · Booker v. Singletary

3. “The threshold issue in all harmless-error inquiries is whether the violation in question amounts to “trial error” or a “structural defect.” Structural defects are not susceptible to harmless-error analysis; trial errors are. Trial error “occur[s] during the presentation of the case to the jury, and ... may therefore be quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented in order to determine whether its admission was harmless.” Structural defects, by contrast, compromise the entire trial process; they involve deprivations of constitutional protections so basic that in their absence no criminal trial can be deemed reliable, nor any punishment fundamentally fair. Examples of trial error include the admission of an involuntary confession, and the improper use at trial of a defendant’s silence after receiving Miranda warnings. Typical structural errors are the total deprivation of the right to counsel at trial and the unlawful exclusion of members of the defendant’s race from the grand jury.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Vines v. United States