State v. Wright’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 27 later decisions — most recently December 2010 · most notably State v. Hafner (1975), State v. Treadaway (1977)
27 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 36 Wash. 2d 367 - State v. Goebel · State v. Wright · 14 Ill. 2d 428 - The PEOPLE v. Greeley · State v. Levy · State v. Armstrong
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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"* * * [T]he problem is * * * one of balancing, on the one side, the actual need for the other-crimes evidence in the light of the issues and the other evidence available to the prosecution, the convincingness of the evidence that the other crimes were committed and that the accused was the actor, and the strength or weakness of the other-crimes evidence in supporting the issue, and on the other, the degree to which the jury will probably be aroused by the evidence to overmastering hostility. "Such a balancing calls for a large measure of individual judgment about the relative gravity of imponderables. Accordingly, some opinions stress the element of discretion. It should be recognized, however, that this is not a discretion to depart from the principle that evidence of other crimes, having no substantial relevancy except to ground the inference that accused is a bad man and hence probably committed this crime, must be excluded. The leeway of discretion lies rather in the opposite direction, empowering the judge to exclude the other-crimes evidence, even when it has substantial independent relevancy, if in his judgment its probative value for this purpose is outweighed by the danger that it will stir such passion in the jury as to sweep them beyond a rational consideration of guilt or innocence of the crime on trial. Discretion implies not only leeway but responsibility. A decision clearly wrong on this question of balancing probative value against danger of prejudice will be”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Johnson“Exercise of trial court discretion * * * goes beyond the question of categorical classification to a determination whether the `minute peg of relevancy will be entirely obscured by the dirty linen hung upon it.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Johnson“A defendant must be convicted only if it is proved he committed the offense charged and not because he is a bad man.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Cage
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.