21 Cal. 2d 760 - People v. Costello’s Empirical Analysis
1943
Citation profile
35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 37 later decisions — most recently June 2011 · most notably 15 Cal. 3d 953 - People v. Tewksbury (1976), 28 Cal. 4th 457 - People v. Mower (2002)
35 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. Arnold · People v. Levine · People v. Winters · People v. Lee Gam · People v. Roberts
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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A suggestion may not be made to the jury that an alibi must be proved by a preponderance of the evidence, or that alibi evidence must satisfy the jury of the defendant’s innocence, or that the jury must give less credit to testimony of alibi witnesses, or more careful scrutiny or less weight to alibi than to other evidence in the case. It is obvious that in cases where the defendant’s own testimony supports the verdict of guilty (People v. Hammer, 74 Cal.App. 345 [ 240 P. 56 ]), or where there is no evidence in support of the alibi (People v. Smith, 189 Cal. 31 [ 207 P. 518 ]; People v. Johnson, 203 Cal. 153 [ 263 P. 524 ]), the giving of an erroneous instruction on the subject of alibi should not be held to prejudice the rights of the defendant. But in cases where the evidence raises a conflict it may not properly be said that the harm resulting from the giving of such an instruction is overcome by general instructions so as to justify on that ground alone an affirmance pursuant to section 4% of article VI of the California Constitution. ’ ’”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“* * * We again répeat that the de--fense of alibi is “not one requiring that the evidence given in support of it should be scrutinized otherwise or differently from that given in support of any other issue in the causeand we may add that, if trial courts will cease to give this particular form of instruction, the ends of justice will be equally as well subserved, and the administration of the laws less embarrassed'. But in this case, as in the Levine Case, the charge of the court, taken as a whole, was so full and fair to the defendant that we cannot conceive that any injury resulted to the defendant from .this unnecessary instruction in regard to the scrutinizing of the evidence given in support'of the defense of alibi.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“* * * Hence I respectfully suggest to you ladies and gentlemen of the jury that while you are not to hesitate at giving this as a defense full weight, that conclusive effect to which, when established, it is justly entitled, either as entirely satisfying you of the innocence of the defendant, or as creating a reasonable doubt which entitles the defendant to an acquittal, still you are to scrutinize the testimony offered in support of an alibi with care, that you may be satisfied that a fabricated defense is not being imposed upon you.”
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.