2 Va. App. 437 - Speller v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 47 later decisions — most recently October 2011 · most notably 5 Va. App. 188 - Evans-Smith v. Commonwealth (1987), 12 Va. App. 1178 - Jenkins v. Winchester Department of Social Services (1991)
47 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 Delaware v. Van Arsdall · Griffin v. California · Whittaker v. Commonwealth · Barker v. Commonwealth · Blue Cross of Virginia v. Com.
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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Whether such an error is harmless in a particular case depends upon a host of factors, all readily accessible to reviewing courts. These factors include the importance of the witness’ testimony in the prosecution’s case, whether the testimony was cumulative, the presence or absence of evidence corroborating or contradicting the testimony of the witness on material points, the extent of cross-examination otherwise permitted, and, of course, the overall strength of the prosecution’s case.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[T]o authorize the reversal of a judgment for refusal to admit relevant testimony, not only must the evidence be relevant, but it must be of such a nature that its rejection may have prejudiced the party offering it. If he may have been prejudiced, even though it be doubtful whether in fact he was or not, that is sufficient ground for reversing the judgment. “When a party offers evidence which he is entitled to introduce to maintain the issue on his part and it is excluded, it will be presumed that he was prejudiced thereby and will work a reversal of the judgment, unless it clearly appears from the whole record that such evidence, if it had been admitted, could not have changed the result.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““[t]he opinions of lay or nonexpert witnesses who are familiar with a person whose physical condition is in question and have had opportunity for observing him are competent evidence on issues concerning the general health, strength, and the bodily vigor of such person, his feebleness or apparent illness, or changes in his apparent state of health or physical condition from one time to another.””
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.