Spright v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1970
Citation profile
17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 19 later decisions — most recently October 2011
17 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 Gaddis v. State · Graham v. State · Stock v. State · Fisher v. State · Finch 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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Appellant's contention that the judgment is contrary to law for the reason that the packages containing the alleged marijuana were admitted into evidence without proper custodial identification must also fail. With respect to the `chain of custody' method of identification of an exhibit, this Court recently stated, in the case of Graham v. State (1970), 253 Ind. 525 , 255 N.E.2d 652 , that: `The chain of evidence method of identification is a widely recognized concept in both criminal and civil law. In most cases it is not possible to establish the identity of an exhibit in question by a single witness. The exhibit has usually passed through several hands before being analyzed or examined or before being produced in court * * *. (I)t is necessary to establish a complete chain of evidence tracing the possession of the exact and original exhibit to the final custodian. If one link of the chain is entirely missing, the exhibit cannot be introduced or made the basis for the testimony or the report of an expert or officer. If the testimony of the State's expert witnesses * * * is sought to be offered at trial, then the State should be prepared to establish a "chain of evidence" by either producing police custody records showing the same or by testimony of witnesses * * *. Unless the State can show by producing records or testimony, the continuous whereabouts of the exhibit at least between the time it came into their possession until it was laboratory tested to determine its comp”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“if you find a party has it peculiarly within his power to produce witnesses whose testimony would elucidate the transaction, the fact that he does not do it creates the presumption that the testimony, if produced would be unfavorable.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.