Ayers v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
26 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently October 2007 · most notably Perry v. State (1982), Upton v. State (1974)
26 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 Jones v. State · Turner v. State · Logi 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[w]here circumstantial evidence is relied upon in a criminal prosecution, proof of a few facts or a multitude of facts all consistent with the supposition of guilt is not sufficient to warrant a verdict of guilty. In order to convict a person upon circumstantial evidence, it is necessary not only that the circumstances all concur to show that the prisoner committed the crime and be consistent with the hypotheses of guilt, since that is to be compared with all the facts proved, but that they be inconsistent with any other rational conclusion and exclude every other reasonable theory or hypothesis except for that of guilt.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Utley v. State“In order to sustain a conviction based solely on circumstantial evidence, the circumstances must be consistent with the guilt of the accused and inconsistent with his innocence, and incapable of explanation on any other reasonable hypotheses than that of guilt. When the circumstances are of such a character as to fairly permit an inference consistent with innocence, they cannot be regarded as sufficient to support a conviction.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““Where circumstantial evidence alone is relied upon to establish guilt of one charged with a crime, such . evidence must exclude every other reasonable hypothesis but the guilt of the accused.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Hurst v. State
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.