Bennett v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"Questions as to the competency or admissibility of testimony ... are referred to the decision of the judge. `As it is the province of the jury to consider what degree of credit ought to be given to evidence, so it is for the court alone to determine whether a witness is competent, or the evidence admissible. Whether there is any evidence is a question for the court; whether it is sufficient is for the jury. And whatever antecedent facts are necessary to be ascertained, for the purposes of deciding the question of competency — as, for example, whether a child understands the nature of an oath, or whether the confession of a prisoner was voluntary, or whether declarations offered in evidence as dying declarations were made under the immediate apprehension of death — those, and other facts of the same kind, are to be determined by the court, and not by the jury.'"”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 33 Va. App. 335 - Bennett v. Commonwealth

2. “Mullins v. Commonwealth, 113 Va. 787, 791 , 75 S.E. 193, 195-96 (1912) (citations omitted). The action of the [trial] court in leaving evidence objected to provisionally to the jury, to be considered or rejected by them, as they might determine its admissibility or inadmissibility under the instruction given by the [trial] court, was not proper practice, as the jury has nothing to do with the admissibility of the evidence. Id. See 7B Michie's Jurisprudence, Evidence § 287 (1998).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 33 Va. App. 335 - Bennett v. Commonwealth

3. “1. Did the trial court err in ruling that the issue of whether the Commonwealth had complied with Code § 18.2-268.2 was a jury issue that it would not decide? 2. Did the trial court err in refusing to allow the defendant to put on evidence as to the testimony of a material witness who had testified in the [general district] court and who was shown to be unavailable in the trial court?”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 33 Va. App. 335 - Bennett v. Commonwealth