Lewis v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The sole question raised by this appeal is whether or not the trial court erred in failing to give appellant’s tendered instruction number 10. Said instruction reads as follows: ‘The evidence in this case raises the question of whether the defendant was in fact a criminal actor and necessitates your resolving any conflict or uncertainty in testimony on that issue. ‘Personal identification evidence is doubtful at best and should be subject to close scrutiny. It is naive to say that any person could be absolutely certain of the identification of another person whom they had never known previously and had observed only in a brief period of excitement and great tension. All testimony of such a nature should be closely scrutinized by the jury so that it may properly evaluate its contents.’ “The language of this instruction is taken from the case of Stinson v. State (1974), 262 Ind. 189 , 313 N.E.2d 699 . There were two victims to the armed robbery, one of whom testified that he did not get a clear look at the robber and was thus unable to make a positive identification. The other victim testified that she did get a good look at the robber during the course of the robbery and that she later identified the appellant from photographs exhibited to her by the police department. She also made a positive in-court identification of the appellant. “Because of the presence of this personal identification at the trial, the appellant claims he was entitled to the tendered instruction number ”

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