13 Va. App. 296 - Corvin v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently August 2012
20 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Kirkpatrick v. Commonwealth · 6 Va. App. 172 - Traverso v. Commonwealth · Lewis v. Commonwealth · Patterson v. Commonwealth · 3 Va. App. 564 - Mullis v. Commonwealth
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This evidence, however, was admitted solely for the purpose of revealing the witness’ possible bias in favor of the defendant and ‘ “bias of a witness is always a relevant subject of inquiry when confined to ascertaining previous relationship, feeling and conduct of the witness.” ’ Henning v. Thomas, 235 Va. 181, 188 , 366 S.E.2d 109, 113 (1988) (quoting Henson v. Commonwealth, 165 Va. 821, 826 , 183 S.E. 435, 437 (1936)). ‘ “[0]n cross-examination, great latitude is allowed and ... the general rule is that anything tending to show the bias on the part of a witness may be drawn out.” ’ Id. In Adams v. Commonwealth, 201 Va. 321 , 111 S.E.2d 396 (1959), the defendant also argued that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of “prior criminal acts of sexual immorality” by defendant and a defense witness. Id. at 326 , 111 S.E.2d at 399 . The Court held that, since the inquiries “concerned the relations of these two persons to each other,” they “related to the credibility of these witnesses and the weight which should be given their testimony, and they were admissible for that purpose.” Id. at 326 , 111 S.E.2d at 399-400 . Similarly, in Patterson v. Commonwealth, 222 Va. 653 , 283 S.E.2d 212 (1981), the Court held that the testimony of a witness which referred to prior unrelated crimes of the defendant was admissible because “[i]t was not offered, as defendant suggests, as affirmative evidence to show defendant committed the crimes with which he was charged” but “was directed ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.