People v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
2 district · 34 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 36 later decisions — most recently October 2018 · most notably 8 Cal. 4th 587 - People v. Leahy (1994), State v. Shadden (2010)
2 district · 34 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 Frye v. United States · 17 Cal. 3d 24 - People v. Kelly · 31 Cal. 3d 815 - People v. Hogan · 44 Cal. 3d 883 - People v. Williams · 40 Cal. 3d 512 - People v. Brown
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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““... Being qualified to attribute the observed eye movements to a particular cause, however, is a far different matter.... Vega’s [the police officer’s] opinion that appellant was under the influence of alcohol, to the extent it was based on the nystagmus test, rests on scientific premises well beyond his knowledge, training, or education. Without some understanding of the processes by which alcohol ingestion produces nystagmus, how strong the correlation is, how other possible causes might be masked, what margin of error has been shown in statistical surveys, and a host of other relevant factors, Vega’s opinion on causation, notwithstanding his ability to recognize the symptom, was unfounded. It should have been excluded.””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“'Nystagmus is an involuntary rapid movement of the eyeball, which may be horizontal, vertical, or rotatory. [Citation.] An inability of the eyes to maintain visual fixation as they are turned from side to side (in other words, jerking or bouncing) is known as horizontal gaze nystagmus, or HGN. [Citation.] Some investigators believe alcohol intoxication increases the frequency and amplitude of HGN and causes HGN to occur at a smaller angle of deviation from the forward direction. [Citation.]' [Citation.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. People v. Randolph“He had no understanding of how nystagmus occurs after ingestion of alcohol, but he had some experiences in which nystagmus resulted from other causes such as head injuries, illness, or medication.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. People v. Randolph
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.