State v. Bester’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions — most recently September 2018 · most notably State v. Mastropetre (1978), Harrison v. State (2004)
2 federal appellate · 27 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 Griffin v. California · People v. Maughs · People v. Cronin · Hall v. State · Rivers v. United States
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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“`It is well settled that the conduct of an accused person following the commission of an alleged crime may be circumstantially relevant to prove both the commission of the acts charged to the accused and the intent and purpose with which those acts were committed. Among such acts are flight of the accused and concealment of the results of the crime.' Rivers v. United States, 9 Cir., 270 F.2d 435, 438 . "This court has consistently approved the giving of a flight instruction where such instruction is germane to the evidence. State v. Wimbush, Iowa, 150 N.W.2d 653, 656 , 657 and cases cited. Defendant does not question the propriety of the instruction in a proper case. The evidence was in sharp conflict as to whether the shooting was accidental or something more that would amount to first degree murder or one of the included offenses.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Thrasher“Instructions as to the credibility of a witness should be general and apply equally to all of the witnesses for the state and the defendant alike. Because a witness may be the defendant is no particular reason why he should be visited with condemnation upon the one hand or clothed with sanctity upon the other. He is before the court as a witness, and should be treated by both the court and the jury just as other witnesses are treated, no better and no worse.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Ludwig“* * * In passing on the credibility of the witnesses and weighing their testimony, you may and should consider * * their interest or lack of interest in the result of the trial, the motives, if any, actuating them as witnesses, their candor, fairness, bias or prejudice, the reasonableness and probability of their statements or the want thereof, * * *.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Thrasher
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.