Taylor v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

42 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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Where character evidence is otherwise relevant to the proceeding, no person offered as a character witness who has an adequate basis for forming an opinion as to another person’s character shall hereafter be excluded from giving evidence based on personal opinion to prove character, either in person or by deposition, in any suit, action or proceeding, civil or criminal, in any court or before any judge, or jury of the State.”

   7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 33 Md. App. 601 - Dove v. State · Void v. State

2. ““It has long been the rule of our cases that an accusation of crime, as distinguished from a conviction, may not be proved as a means of impeaching the testimony of a defendant who takes the stand in his own behalf. ... The same rule has always been applied to the impeachment of any other witness, including one called as a character witness for a criminal defendant .... We think that the identical rule should be applied to the cross-examination of a character witness called by the defendant, for if it is impermissible to question the defendant about a prior accusation, it should be similarly impermissible to question the defendant’s character witness about that prior accusation of the accused, the potential for prejudice being the same and the relevance insignificant.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Snyder v. State · 35 Md. App. 202 - Facyson v. State

3. “any error of constitutional dimension which could have resulted from the cross-examination of [the appellant’s] character witnesses was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt [because t]he character witnesses who were asked about [the appellant’s] prior convictions denied knowledge of the convictions and then testified that if they had been aware of the convictions, their opinion of [the appellant’s] reputation as a “peaceful” man would have remained unchanged. Thus, the State’s use of the prior convictions failed to produce the desired result.”

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