Smith v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““If it is feasible for each witness, victim or otherwise, to stand alone when asked to make the identification, aye [or] nay, this is the course that should be followed. While the benefit of a prompt on-the-scene confrontation makes acceptable the necessary suggestiveness of presentation of a single subject (a ‘show-up’), there is ordinarily no need for the additional element of suggestiveness of identification made at the same time by two or more witnesses in each other’s company.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 271 Pa. Super. 508 - Commonwealth v. Carter

2. ““Essential benefits thus accrue both to the police, who should not use valuable time in looking for the offender if an apprehended suspect goes unidentified, and the innocent suspect, who should not suffer undue custody awaiting police station identification. More importantly, prompt, yet fair, confrontations are reliable .. . .””

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