Ward v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1959
Citation profile
42 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 42 later decisions — most recently September 1994 · most notably Harrison v. State (1975), Brown v. State (1959)
42 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 Wilson v. State · Clay v. State · Purviance v. State · Lyman v. State · Floyd 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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““An accused must be convicted by evidence which shows that he is guilty of the offense charged; and, under ordinary circumstances, evidence that he has done other acts which constitute a crime has no relevance towards showing that he did that with which he is presently charged. If, however, the evidence of another offense has a natural tendency to establish, or offers a reasonable presumption or inference as to, a principal fact at issue or matter in dispute, it should be admitted even though it discloses other offenses, (cases cited). This Court said in Purviance v. State, 185 Md. 189 , 196: ‘While guilt cannot be established by proving that the defendant has committed other crimes, it is firmly established that evidence of acts may be admitted to show motive, intent, absence of mistake or accident, a common scheme, or identity embracing the commission of two or more crimes so related to each other that proof of one tends to establish the other.’ ””
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.