United States v. Lamont B. Nelson and Delano C. Nelson

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• noting that while attacking the credibility of a witness is a core function of cross-examination, “it is of peripheral concern to the Sixth Amendment how much opportunity defense counsel gets to hammer that point home to the jury.”
• upholding district court’s refusal to allow cross-examination of two government witnesses regarding the potential penalties they faced without their plea bargains
• upholding district court’s refusal to allow cross-examination of two government witnesses regarding the potential penalties they faced without their plea bargains
• stating that if the defendant is given the opportunity during cross examination “to expose a motive to lie, it is of peripheral concern to the Sixth Amendment how much opportunity defense coun- sel gets to hammer that point home to the jury”
• upholding restriction of cross-examination on penalty witness would have faced without executing plea agreement
• finding no Sixth Amendment violation, stating “limitations on cross-examination did not deny the defendants the opportunity to establish that the witnesses may have had a motive to lie; rather, the limitations denied them the opportunity to add extra detail to that motive”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).