Fleenor v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1958
Citation profile
40 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently January 2005 · most notably Smith v. Commonwealth (1978), 1 Va. App. 241 - Sutphin v. Commonwealth (1985)
40 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 Roy v. Commonwealth · McWhorter v. Commonwealth · Tyree v. Commonwealth
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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is well settled in this State, and elsewhere, that evidence which tends to show that an accused has committed another crime independent of, and unconnected with, that for which he is on trial is inadmissible. This is upon the principle that such evidence confuses the issue before the jury, unfairly surprises the accused with a charge he is not prepared to meet, and tends to prejudice him in the minds of the jury by showing his depravity or criminal propensity.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“had the effect of impeaching [the defendant's] character, which he had not put in issue, and led to the inference that because of a criminal propensity he probably committed the crime for which he was being tried.”
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.