29 Va. App. 521 - Shifflett v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1999
Citation profile
12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently April 2015
12 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 LeVasseur v. Commonwealth · Spencer v. Commonwealth · Cheng v. Commonwealth · Satcher v. Commonwealth · 5 Va. App. 188 - Evans-Smith v. Commonwealth
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Although the admissibility of evidence showing modus operandi has generally been viewed as a means of proving the identity of a crime’s perpetrator.... We see no reason, however, to limit the admissibility of evidence showing modus operandi to the purpose of proving identity. When evidence of idiosyncratic similarities in an accused’s mode of attack exists and constitutes a logical connection with the crime charged, such evidence may be admitted for the purpose of establishing, by inference, the accused’s intent, motive, malice, premeditation, or the accused’s feelings toward the victim, as well as the perpetrator’s identity.”
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.