Stephenson v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 state decisions

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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Courts from all levels, psychologists, and commentators have accepted the premise that the “identification of strangers is proverbially untrustworthy.” United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 228 , 87 S.Ct. 1926, 1933 , 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967); U.S. v. Brownlee, 454 F.3d 131, 141 (3rd Cir.2006); Cook v. State, 741 S.W.2d 928, 952 (Tex.Crim.App.1987) (Clinton J., dissenting). The hazards of eyewitness identifications are established by a formidable number of instances of misidentification in the records of American criminal jurisprudence.... Making the situation even more problematic is the fact that “jurors seldom enter a courtroom with the knowledge that eyewitness identifications are unreliable.” ... Given these vagaries, a defendant’s ability to effectively challenge the certainty and confidence of an eyewitness identification is a matter of paramount importance to the fair administration of justice.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 615 F. Supp. 2d 546 - Sturgeon v. Quarterman