State v. Maben’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Judge, what we did in this case is we had the original address of the victim which is in Cookstown or Wrightstown. I think it’s some Mary Street — some number on Mary Street. What we did is we sent a letter to that last address that we had. Okay. However, that — she no longer lived there. Then we got some indication that she may live at [a trailer park in] Wrightstown. We sent a letter to that address, and it was checked off “Attempted — Not known.” Okay. And that the person was not there. Then my investigator contacted the Welfare Board as we had some indication that the victim’s mother was receiving assistance. Our sources at the Welfare Board gave an address in Houston. This was not an address that was provided to us from the victim as a forwarding address. This is what we found out through our investigation, Judge. And this was an address of 1520 Silver Street from Houston, Texas. We sent a teletype to that — to the Houston Police Department asking them to attempt to locate — and it says, “Police attempts to locate [S.G.] at 1520 Silver Street, Houston, Texas, and request her to call Investigator Bell with reference to her testifying at trial. Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter.” We then receive a teletype back from the Houston Police Department to our Prosecutor’s Office in reference to locating missing witness [S.G.] at 1520 Silver Street, and their reply was, “Please be advised that we have a street name Silber, S-i-l-b-e-r, and both street address”

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

2. “If our courts allow the skimpy proofs in this case to pass muster as a diligent search for a missing witness, we see no reason why any prosecutor would venture beyond the boundaries of this limited inquiry. It is obviously advantageous to have the “unavailable” child’s declarations provided unvarnished to a jury, free of the potential perils of cross-examination.”

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

3. “[a] child better be truly unavailable before his or her untested hearsay statements are presented to a jury in a sex case.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 342 N.J. Super. 14 - State v. TE