Cain v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

57 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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[I]n reviewing a judgment on appeal it is the duty of the Supreme Court to sutain the action of the trial court if it can be done on any legal ground on the record. This is true even though the reason given by the trial court might be erroneous, if the ruling can be sustained on another ground.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Gilmer v. Board of Commissioners · 177 Ind. App. 495 - Elmore v. City of Sullivan

2. ““The statements are also ‘self-serving’ (i.e. tending toward establishing the position of a party-declarant) and are deemed to be too inherently unreliable to be admitted. The application of this principle in criminal cases is well-established in this state and many others. The principle applies to statements made both prior to and subsequent to the act for which the statements are offered as evidence about the intent to do said act. Thus, in an Indiana prosecution for larceny, an offer by the defendant to prove statements negativing an intent to steal made after the larceny occurred was rejected. In affirming, this Court said: ‘... the excluded statements were no part of the res gestae; but were in the nature of self-serving declarations, which were open to the suspicion of being part of a hastily formed plan of defense.’ “Spittorff v. State (1886), 108 Ind. 171, 174 , 8 N.E. 911, 913 ; accord. Durst v. State (1920), 190 Ind. 133 , 128 N.E. 920 .””

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