McClain v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 21 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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Despite the hazards of initial identification by photograph, this procedure has been used widely and effectively in criminal law enforcement, from the standpoint both of apprehending offenders and of sparing innocent suspects the ignominy of arrest by allowing eye witnesses to exonerate them through scrutiny of photographs. The danger that use of the techniques may result in convictions based on misidentification may be substantially lessened by a course of cross examination at trial which exposes to the jury the method’s potential for error. We are unwilling to prohibit its employment, either in the exercise of our supervisory power or, still less, as a matter of constitutional requirement. Instead, we hold that each case must be considered on its own facts, and that convictions based on eyewitness identification at trial following a pre-trial identification by photograph will be set aside on that ground only if the photographic identification procedure was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Gibson v. State · 13 Md. App. 361 - Crenshaw v. State

2. “Whether [she] started crying, or nearly went into hysterics, is not really the important point; [both the police officer and the victim] agreed ... that the identification was positive, and expressed without the slightest hesitation or equivocation....”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Holden v. State