State v. Hubner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Rachel thought Hubner was nice to her. Hubner began to give Rachel short hugs. At some point, however, these hugs became a kind where Hubner would touch her body in the wrong way. He also began to kiss Rachel on the neck, and cheek, and would French kiss her. This contact occurred at his house while Rachel was baby-sitting. There came a time when Hubner began to fondle Rachel’s breasts and bottom through her clothing and would tell Rachel she had a nice body. On one occasion, Hubner came up from behind Rachel, grabbed her chest, and “rub[bed] certain body parts.” In another incident, Hubner removed Rachel’s shirt, but not her bra, and just stared at her. Hubner also would put his hands in her front and back pockets and would massage her vagina and her buttocks through her clothes. This progressed until he would also touch her vaginal area under her clothes. Hubner would also come up behind her while he had an erection and rub himself against her. On other occasions, she touched his crotch both with and without his clothes on. This behavior progressed to him masturbating in front of Rachel and having sexual intercourse with her. Hubner also gave her alcohol. Rachel testified Hubner would tell her she was pretty, she had a beautiful body, and that he loved her. He threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone. During the hearing, Hubner took the stand and admitted pleading guilty to one count of unlawful sexual contact against Rachel, but denied he committed any of the acts Ra”

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

2. “In this case, the trial court did not address any connection between the two crimes to establish if the allegations by the victim’s sister were admissible. The court instead ruled, “it goes to a common scheme or plan because of the close degree of similarity between the conduct, with regards to the two victims.” When the State was asked to explain why the testimony was essential to its case, the solicitor responded: This is technically a credibility case, that’s what it is. It’s one witness’s word against potentially another witness’s word. The evidence would be relevant and would be essential to the State’s case because it is a piece of evidence, just like any other piece of evidence, that goes to prove or disprove the case. And this is strictly a credibility case: Therefore, this testimony is necessary to, again, prove the victim’s allegations. This argument could be used to admit testimony of any prior crime when a defendant is accused of a subsequent but similar crime. It falls far short of the threshold for the admission of a prior crime under the common scheme or plan exception to Lyle . Accordingly, the trial court erred in admitting the evidence on this basis. It was also error for the trial judge to attempt to limit the testimony of the sister so that there would be a close similarity between the prior bad act and the crime charged. The court noted that the testimony of the sister was more egregious than that of the victim and ordered the testimony redacted, stating,”

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

3. “In the case at hand, the acts were against two different victims and occurred some fourteen years apart. Thus, the testimony cannot be admitted on a generalized basis as a pattern of continuous illicit conduct under the common scheme or plan exception. Rather, the admissibility of Rachel’s testimony rests solely on whether the requisite degree of similarity between the separate acts is present. As noted, this similarity must not merely be a similarity in the results. Rather, there must be such a concurrence of common features that the various acts are normally to be explained as caused by a general plan of which they are the individual manifestations. The trial judge here recognized the numerous dissimilarities in the two cases. He nonetheless allowed into evidence prior bad acts against Rachel, attempting to limit the impact of these dissimilarities by restricting the examination of Rachel to testimony concerning only similar acts. The evidence was thus presented in a vacuum to the jury. However, this does not diminish the fact that an overwhelming number of significant dissimilarities were present between the prior bad act and the case at hand. While the similarities may “link the two crimes,” the question is whether they “paint the broader, more relevant picture” of a common scheme or plan of which they are the individual manifestations. Tutton, 354 S.C. at 331 , 580 S.E.2d at 192-93 . Thus, the trial judge failed to balance the similarities and dissimilarities in making a”

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