Sears v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
43 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 43 later decisions — most recently January 2001 · most notably Lagenour v. State (1978), Ballard v. State (1974)
43 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 Boyle v. State · Keyes v. State · Thomas v. State · Loftis v. State · Miller 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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"... The right to vigorous cross examination is fundamental to our adversary process, and wide latitude is allowed both sides in a dispute to ask pointed and relevant questions on cross examination in an attempt to undermine the opposition's case. Thus, any doubt as to the legitimacy of a question on cross examination should be resolved in favor of the questioner."”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage““Subject to the limitation that the cross-examination of a witness must be limited to the subject matter of his examination in chief, as discussed infra § 119, and to the exercise of a sound discretion by the trial court, supra § 112, generally, any matter is a proper subject of cross-examination which is favorable to the cross-examiner and tends to discredit or rebut the theory or claim of the opposing party, or which is responsive to testimony given on direct examination and tends to elucidate, modify, explain, contradict, or rebut testimony given in chief by the witness, or any logical inference resulting therefrom.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Pearish 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.