Brodes v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 110 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 116 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “'[t]he scientific validity of the studies confirming the many weaknesses of eyewitness identification cannot be seriously questioned at this point' " and research " 'ha[s] taught us much about the fallibility of eyewitness identification' "). The Brodes Court concluded that, given "the critical importance of accurate jury instructions as 'the lamp to guide the jury's feet in journeying through the testimony in search of a legal verdict,' we can no longer endorse an instruction authorizing jurors to consider the witness's certainty in his/her identification as a factor to be used in deciding the reliability of that identification.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 297 Ga. App. 43 - Robinson v. State · Small v. State

2. “[T]he idea that a witness's certainty in his or her identification of a person as a perpetrator reflect[s] the witness's accuracy has been 'flatly contradicted by well-respected and essentially unchallenged empirical studies.'”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. John Discola · Small v. State

3. “are the lamp to guide the jury’s feet in journeying through the testimony in search of a legal verdict. The office of a charge by the court is to give to the jury such instruction touching the rules of law pertinent to the issues involved in a pending trial as will enable them intelligently to apply thereto the evidence submitted, and from the two constituents law and fact make a verdict.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 296 Ga. App. 596 - Aceves v. State