170 W. Va. 3 - State v. Evans’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently October 2010
17 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 Trammel v. United States · Exxon Corp. v. Department of Revenue of Wisconsin · 163 W. Va. 502 - State v. Atkins · State v. Freeman · 155 W. Va. 89 - Humphrey v. Mauzy
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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In criminal cases husband and wife shall be allowed, and, subject to the rules of evidence governing other witnesses, may be compelled to testify in behalf of each other, but neither shall be compelled, nor, without the consent of the other, allowed to be called as a witness against the other except in the case of a prosecution for an offense committed by one against the other, or against the child, father, mother, sister or brother of either of them.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“Under the Federal Rules of Evidence testimonial privileges are “governed by the principles of the common law as they may be interpreted ... in the light of reason and experience.” FedR.Evid. 501. Hence, the Supreme Court in Trammel was free to modify the privilege against spousal testimony as long as “reason and experience” supported such a change. However, that change only affects cases conducted in jurisdictions in which the Federal Rules of Evidence or the common law rules concerning privileges apply ... [I]n this Court ... the contents of the privilege against spousal testimony are controlled by W.Va. Code, 57-3-3 [1923]. Should “reason and experience” dictate a change in that statute, it is up to our Legislature to draft and pass appropriate modifications.”
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.