Bell v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"In the early case of Finklea v. State, 94 Miss. 777 , 48 So. 1 , the prosecuting attorney called the defendant's wife to the stand as a witness for the State, and, in the presence of the jury, caused the defendant to object to her as being incompetent to testify. The objection was promptly sustained by the trial court. On appeal this Court held that the prosecutor's act was improper, but it declined to reverse the case for that error. In Carter v. State, 99 Miss. 435 , 54 So. 734 , the State's counsel asked the defendant, on cross-examination, if his wife would testify and whether he would object if the State should call her as a witness. The defendant's objection was promptly sustained. This Court, while saying that these questions were highly improper, declined to denominate this occurrence as reversible error. Again, in Bryant v. State, 179 Miss. 739 , 176 So. 590 , which was a bigamy prosecution, the introduction of the first wife, who was sworn but withdrawn before she testified against the defendant, was held to be harmless error." 244 Miss. at 869 , 147 So.2d at 625 .”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Simpson v. State · 339 So. 2d 1378 - Wideman v. State