State v. Lovette’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[P]rior to calling the witness Johnson, the district attorney had substantial reason to believe that Johnson would likely repudiate his pretrial statement if called upon to testify. The record strongly suggests that the prosecutor could not have been genuinely surprised or taken unawares by the testi mony of Johnson. To the contrary, he knew, or had every reason to believe, that Johnson would not testify consistent with his pretrial statement. Under these circumstances the district attorney was not entitled to impeach his own witness and the court erred to defendant’s prejudice in permitting him to do so. See State v. Pope, supra; State v. Anderson, supra.”

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