Brown v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Many courts have shown considerable reluctance in admitting what is called in the books ‘experimental evidence,’ and have said that such evidence should be received with great caution. But the modern tendency is to receive such evidence, when the comparative conditions are such as to be substantially the same in regard to the particular issue in question. It is not required that all the conditions shall be precisely reproduced; but it is sufficient if they are so nearly the same in substantial particulars as to afford a fair comparison in respect to the particular issue to which the tests are directed. As said in Harrison v. Railway Co., 93 Miss. 40 , 46 So. 408 , the circumstances of the tests or experiments must be (1) identical, or (2) nearly identical, with those with which the experiments are sought to be compared; and all the authorities are to the effect that these questions are largely within the sound discretion of the trial judge, and that the only effect of a variation between a precise and a substantial reproduction is as to the weight of the experimental evidence rather than its admissibility. “It seems to us that the probabilities are so strong in favor of the affirmative that the experiments or tests in this case were made under substantially similar conditions, so far as were material to the particular issue in hand, that the trial judge cannot be held to have abused his discretion in admitting the evidence. If the requirements of the rule were that all condi”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Elliott v. Massey