Talk:Washington v. Texas/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Grandiose (talk · contribs) 11:46, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I'll be taking this review. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:46, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Opening comments

Not much to say - the sourcing in particular is excellent - but I do feel the lead could do with a look. I do feel the reader is thrown in at the deep end: Washington was the first Supreme Court decision to hold that the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment required the reversal of a criminal defendant's conviction if he was barred from obtaining material and relevant witnesses in his favor.. Now I'm British, but I don't quite follow and I think we ought to minimise the level of technical detail required, particularly in the lead. The lead isn't overly long, and I don't think it would take much (maybe another couple of sentences) to really help on this front. The alternative would be augment the "Background" section with a few details of the law, reducing its current focus on case law.

I've also added two citation needed tags. Third, it would be odd to speak of a "majority opinion" in the UK where the court found so unanimously; it rather presupposes the existence of a minority opinion. Is this different in the US?

Image is fine; I don't suppose a photograph of Washington exists.

Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:22, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

• As to issues in the lead/background, I feel that criticism is fair. I'll try to work on that over the next few days. As to your other questions, in the US we still would call it the "majority opinion". The only word we have for a decision that is so unanimous, is a "Per Curiam" (for the Court) opinion. That didn't happen in this case, so I think 'majority opinion' is probably okay. Though I'm not partial to such a small change if you feel I'm off. Thanks for working on this review! Best, Lord Roem (talk) 22:10, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Phrased better now? Lord Roem (talk) 04:19, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Better, but I still think it could be improved. It's not really clear what prosecutors were trying to do – I only understood by the time I got to When he sought to have Fuller testify to back up his story, the trial judge blocked him on the basis of a Texas statute which provided that "persons charged or convicted as co-participants in the same crime could not testify for one another". in the main text and I think it would be very useful to the reader to incorporate that into the lead. all of which based the right of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, is ungrammatical and ref #17 needs to be after the comma. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 08:43, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to keep going over this – that part is much better – but I'm now a little confused over instead preferring to base their decision on the trial guarantees of a defendant. what does this mean? Why the emphasis on "trial"? The, in the body of the article, most of the first half of "Opinion of the Court" is the court rejecting the Texas law. the Court did not create any broader rules for how trial judges then implies that there was something in its place. If I had to guess, I'd say that they meant that they required courts to instead "balance evidentiary standards and the right of the defendant to hold witnesses in his favor" but it feels a bit cart-before-horse put round like that, if I'm right. I think that paragraph would make more sense, if so, if it said what courts were meant to do after Washington and then to say that the court in Washington didn't lay down any criteria for doing do.Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:45, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

I think it's just a minor issue. I'm trying to say there that the court's decision was predicated on "you have a trial right to have witnesses", a very specific concept, as opposed to "the general nature of due process requires it". Lord Roem (talk) 00:32, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'm passing the article. I certainly think the accessibility of the article could still be improved (as could coverage) but at this stage it would seem to fulfil the GA criteria. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:43, 8 July 2012 (UTC)