28 Va. App. 288 - Hackney v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1998
Citation profile
27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2018 · most notably 48 Va. App. 58 - Luginbyhl v. Commonwealth (2006), Currier v. Virginia (2018)
27 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Kirkpatrick v. Commonwealth · 12 Va. App. 1003 - Lavinder v. Commonwealth · 1 Va. App. 241 - Sutphin v. Commonwealth · Lewis v. Commonwealth · Commonwealth v. Burns
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Generally, evidence that a defendant has committed crimes other than the offense for which he is being tried is highly prejudicial and inadmissible. Such evidence confuses the issues before the jury and tends to prejudice the defendant in the minds of the jury by showing his or her depravity and criminal propensity. This rule is not without exception. Evidence of other crimes or convictions may be admitted for the purpose of, among other things, impeaching the credibility of a witness, including a criminal defendant, attacking a defendant's character on cross-examination, or proving a relevant issue or element of the offense charged, such as motive, intent, common scheme or plan, knowledge or identity.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“To prove the charge of possession of a firearm after being convicted of a felony, the Commonwealth was required to prove that Johnson was a convicted felon. Thus, with respect to that charge, the trial court was obliged to receive evidence of Johnson’s prior criminal record. However, that evidence bore no relevance and had no probative value with respect to the charges relating to possession of cocaine. With respect to those charges, it served merely the purpose of prejudicing Johnson in the eyes of the jury, by suggesting to their minds that he had a criminal propensity.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[T]he harmless error doctrine enables an appellate court or a trial court when considering a motion to set aside a verdict to ignore the effect of an erroneous ruling when an error clearly has had no impact upon the verdict or sentence in a case.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.