Walker v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““This is an old rule of evidence, and therefore a rule nf law, applicable to the rights of persons as well as to the rights of property. It is not merely a technical rule, hut one of substantial justice, and founded upon a safe and wise public policy. Not only would it he unsafe, as it is sometimes said of it, that one man’s oath in such matter should outweigh another’s, which is possibly not entirely satisfactory, in view of that fact that it may do so in respect to property, or even life, but it is a matter of first importance in the administration of justice that witnesses should feel themselves safe in testifying to their own conception, recollection, and honest belief as to the facts forming the subject of inquiry in the courts. If it were so that one man could he convicted ■of perjury or false swearing by the oath alone of another who testifies to the contrary, the timid and the humble and obscure would not feel safe, and would not he safe, in giving their testimony, where it might be opposed by that of one of influence and prominence. It is right that the jury, or other tribunal trying the fact, should have the privilege of weighing the evidence, or discrediting one witness entirely .and believing another, according to the probability of the matter as it seems to them; hut if the law allowed that one man’s oath might convict another of perjury or false swearing, the effect would be to deter the timid and obscure person, and to that extent retard the administration of p”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Capps v. Commonwealth