Robinson v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
43 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 43 later decisions — most recently April 2018 · most notably Davis v. State (1993), Bruce v. State (1990)
43 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 Dorsey v. State · Burgess v. United States · Cross v. State · State v. Jefferson · Christensen v. State
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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]his case differs significantly from Christensen because, according to the defendant’s testimony, there was no reasonable possibility that the defendant’s case would be harmed even if Johnson were called and he claimed the privilege in the presence of the jury. The defendant’s testimony demonstrated that Johnson was probably guilty of a crime. The defendant said he had seen Johnson driving the car on the day preceding the incident. He also said that at the time he borrowed the car, he believed Johnson when Johnson said the car belonged to his cousin. However, the defendant said that after the police showed him that the ignition lock had been “popped,” and after Johnson walked away from him when he attempted to have Johnson explain the circumstances to the police, the defendant realized that Johnson must have known the car was stolen. That being the case, if the defendant had called Johnson as a witness and Johnson had refused to testify, the refusal would have been entirely consistent with the defendant’s version of the facts, and would not have been damaging to the defendant’s case. According to the only evidence in the case relating to Johnson, he was neither an accomplice nor a codefendant. He was the probable thief or receiver of the stolen car, who had misled the defendant. The reasonable fear of calling a witness that was present in Christensen was not present here.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“The issue in this case ... is not what inferences the jury might have drawn or what arguments might be proper.... The issue is whether it was proper for the judge to give the instruction he gave. That instruction ... added a judicial imprimatur to the adverse inference that might be drawn from [Johnson's] absence.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Harris v. State“courts have reacted to the [missing witness] rule's potential inaccuracy and unfairness by decreasing the number of situations in which the adverse inference might be applied”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Harris v. State
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.