393 So. 2d 486 - Ex Parte Brooks’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently November 2011
1 federal appellate · 12 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 Green v. State · Morrison v. State · Riley v. City of Huntsville · Frazier v. State · Cary 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"The case law of this state has consistently held the institution of a civil suit arising out of the same facts as a criminal prosecution to be within the permissible scope of cross-examination to show bias on the part of the witness. This rule is augmented by the public policy of this state as codified in § 12-21-137 , Code 1975, which mandates the right of every party to a 'thorough and sifting' cross-examination of the opponent's witnesses. Riley v. City of Huntsville , 379 So.2d 557 (Ala. 1980). "The general rule . . . is stated in Green v. State , 258 Ala. 471 , 64 So.2d 84 (1953): "It is always competent on cross-examination to make such interrogation of a witness as would tend to test his interest, bias or prejudice or to illustrate or impeach the accuracy of his testimony. " See also, Morrison v. State , 267 Ala. 1 , 100 So.2d 744 (1957). "In the discharge of its fact finding functions the jury's search for truth includes the paramount right to consider a witness's motivation, and any evidence testing 'his interest, bias or prejudice' so as to 'illustrate or impeach the accuracy of his testimony' is a competent, material and relevant subject of cross-examination, and the jury's right to be given such evidence is, of itself, part of the fact finding process. Green v. State , supra."”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“We understand, and are in sympathy with, the apparent logic that rejects the notion that the jury is apt to infer any different or greater degree of bias on the part of the victim because of his institution of a civil action than that which the jury would infer as a material incident of the victim’s injuries suffered at the hands of the defendant. But this approach to the problem begs the question. The pertinent inquiry is: Within whose prerogative does this determination lie?”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.