Shanks v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1945
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 75 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 80 later decisions — most recently November 2009 · most notably Reed v. State (1978), Christophersen v. Allied-Signal Corp. (1991)
3 federal appellate · 75 state decisions — followed in 15 states
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 Wilson v. United States · Holmes v. Goldsmith · Wilson v. State · 10 Cal. 2d 428 - Arais v. Kalensnikoff · United States Trask v. Wanamaker
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 80 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Judges and juries must be presumed to have average intelligence at least, and no assumption to the contrary can be made for the purpose of excluding otherwise admissible testimony.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The paternity tests are based upon further scientific discoveries, that the child of two people having the same blood group cannot be in one of the other blood groups, but if the two parents have different blood grouping, then a different situation arises. The statutes, including the Maryland statute above referred to, generally provide, and the cases generally hold, that blood tests in paternity cases are only evidence in case definite exclusion is established. That means that if the child has blood 0, and both the mother and the putative father have blood 0, that is no evidence that the putative father is really the father, because 45 per cent, of the population have that same blood. But if the child has blood A and both the mother and the putative father have blood 0,then it is evidence to exclude the father, because a combination of two persons both with blood 0 cannot produce a child with group A. [Id. at 441.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Thompson v. Thompson“Whenever the defendant in bastardy proceedings denies that he is the father of the child, upon the petition of the defendant, the court shall order that the complainant, her child and the defendant submit to such blood tests as may be deemed necessary to determine whether or not the defendant can be excluded as being the father of the child. The result of the test shall be received in evidence, but only in case definite exclusion is established.... If the complainant or her child fail to submit to the blood tests ordered by the court to be taken, such fact, when properly adduced by evidence, shall be disclosed to the court and jury, and may be commented upon by the court or by counsel to the jury or to the court when sitting as a jury [emphasis supplied].”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Eagan v. Ayd
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.