Hines v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1923
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 55 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2014 · most notably Chambers v. Mississippi (1973), Lilly v. Virginia (1999)
4 federal appellate · 47 state decisions — followed in 17 states
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 Mattox v. United States · Donnelly v. United States · Karnes v. Commonwealth · 55 Tex. Crim. 30 - Blocker v. State · Barsa v. Kator
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 55 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If there be doubt about whether such declarations were actually made, or, if made, were true, such doubts, like any others as to the weight and credibility of testimony, ought to be settled by the jury. It may be true that evidence of extra judicial confessions is susceptible of abuse, but the same thing is equally true as to extra judicial admissions made against pecuniary or proprietary interests, and such admissions are now universally admitted, even when made by third parties to the litigation, if they are material to the issue. If a charge involving the life or liberty of a citizen, and depending solely upon circumstantial evidence, cannot stand the test of allowing the jury to determine from the testimony whether a third party has in fact confessed guilt, and if so whether such confession was true, a conviction ought not to follow.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Unfortunately, as all must concede, witnesses sometimes swear falsely, and it cannot be doubted that alleged confessions of crime by third parties may easily be foisted on the courts and juries, but so may alleged admissions in civil cases, as, for example, regarding the location of a corner tree or other real estate controversy. As to both classes of admissions they must be admitted, if at all, because the evidence itself is important to the ends of justice, and because it may be assumed that no man will speak falsely to his own hurt. The truth of the admission itself, and the credibility of the witness who undertakes to repeat the admission, must, like the truthfulness of all other testimony, address itself to and be settled by the jury.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.