Halsey v. . Sinsebaugh’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 27 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. ““The learned judge who presided at the trial seems to have followed the rule laid down by Mr. Phillips in his work upon Evidence, which is, in substance, that such memoranda may be used to refresh the recollection of the witness, but can have no force as evidence, unless the witness, after referring to the memorandum, has a present recollection of the facts to which the memorandum relates. “This was, no doubt, at one time, supposed to be the true rule; and, as such, it was adopted and followed in several cases by the courts of this and other States. Lawrence v. Barker, 5 Wend. [N. Y.] 301; Feeter v. Heath, 11 Wend. [N. Y.] 485; Calvert v. Fitzgerald, Litt. Sel. Cas. [Ky.] 388; Juniata Bank v. Brown , 5 Serg. & R. [Pa. ] 232. But in the case of State v. Rawls, 2 Nott & McC. [S. C.] 334, this rule was subjected to a critical examination by the Constitutional Court of South Carolina, and was, as I think, proved to have originated in a misapprehension of the cases of Doe v. Perkins [3 D. & E. 752], and Tanner v. Taylor [MSS.], cited by Mr. Phillips in its support. The commentary by Nott, J., upon those cases shows conclusively that the memoranda there produced were not the originals made by the witness at the time the events occurred, but mere copies or extracts from such originals taken long afterwards. “This commentary, which is quoted in extenso and approved by Cowen, J., in the case of Merrill v. Rail road Co., 16 Wend. [N. Y. ] 586 [ 30 Am. Dec. 130 ], seems to me entirely j”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Koehler v. Abey