MacEwen v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 74 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 81 later decisions — most recently March 2025 · most notably Ross v. State (1976), Simmons v. State (1988)
6 federal appellate · 74 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 People v. . Sharp · Wilson v. State · Wentz v. State · Farris v. People · Courtney v. State
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 81 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[w]hile embezzlement is sustained by the diversion of a single sum of money at a particular time, in many cases it runs for a long period of time and consists of converting different sums of money on many dates to the use of the thief.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the connection of the fact proved with the offense charged, as evidence which has a natural tendency to establish the fact at issue.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Allewalt · State v. Joynes“The frequently enunciated general rule in this State, followed uniformly elsewhere, is that in a prosecution for a particular crime, evidence which in any manner shows or tends to show that the accused has committed another crime wholly independent of that for which he is on trial, even though it be a crime of the same type, is irrelevant and inadmissible. This principle is merely an application of the policy rule prohibiting the initial introduction by the prosecution of evidence of bad character. Thus, the State may not present evidence of other criminal acts of the accused unless the evidence is “substantially relevant for some other purpose other than to show a probability that he committed the crime on trial because he is a man of criminal character 2 Moreover, apart from the fundamental proposition that an accused may be convicted only by evidence which shows that he is guilty of the offense charged, and not by evidence which indicates his guilt of entirely unrelated crimes, there are additional reasons underlying the general rule. Evidence of other crimes may tend to confuse the jurors or prejudice their minds against the accused and to predispose them to a belief in his guilt. We have said that the introduction of evidence which shows other offenses by the accused should be subjected to rigid scrutiny by the courts because of the great potential for danger which characterizes it. (Emphasis supplied).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.