Fischer v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[0]n-the-scene observations and narrations of a police officer conducting a roadside investigation into a suspected DWI offense are fraught with the thought of a future prosecution: the police officer is gathering evidence to use in deciding whether to arrest and charge someone with a crime. Calculation and criminal litigation shimmer in the air; the officer is gathering evidence, he is not making an off-hand, non-reflective observation about the world as it passes by.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Texas Department of Public Safety v. Caruana · Peter H. Eggert v. State

2. “The rationale for the [present sense impression] exception is that the contemporaneity of the statement with the event that it describes eliminates all danger of faulty memory and virtually all danger of insincerity. ⅜ ⅜ ‡ The rule is predicated on the notion that “the utterance is a reflex product of immediate sensual impressions, unaided by retrospective mental processes.” It is “instinctive, rather than deliberate.” If the declarant has had time to reflect upon the event and the conditions he observed, this lack of contemporaneity diminishes the reliability of the statements and renders them inadmissible under the rule.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Reyes v. State

3. “The first set of hearsay exceptions, un-reflective statements, are “street corner” utterances made by ordinary people before any thoughts of litigation have crystallized. These unreflective statements used to be called “res ges-tae,” an imprecise Latin legalese term, because the speaker was not thinking about the legal consequences of his statements. In most instances, the speaker was not thinking at all; the statement was made without any reflection, thought process, or motive to fabricate or exaggerate.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Reyes v. State