Huggins v. State’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. “It is the statement of the declarant that is being admitted, not the interpretative narrative of the person who heard the statement. Care should be taken to guarantee that the Statute is not abused by permitting a witness, such as a police officer, to embellish the prior statement by his own interpretation, even if the embellishment is made in the utmost good faith. Obviously, the best protection in this regard is a written statement. In the case of oral statements, the best safeguard would seem to be in foundation questions establishing the time, the place and the person to whom the statement was made. These are the traditional safeguards in treating a witness fairly when impeaching him by a prior inconsistent statement. It would seem that no less a standard should be required for evidence having substantive independent testimonial value. 5”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Morgan v. State