Commonwealth v. Ruffen’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 53 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 57 later decisions — most recently June 2019 · most notably State v. Budis (1991), Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, Inc. v. Commissioner of Department of Mental Retardation (1997)
2 federal appellate · 53 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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 Commonwealth v. Bohannon · State v. Howard · Commonwealth v. Joyce · 110 Wis. 2d 414 - State v. Padilla · Commonwealth v. Bohannon
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 57 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““If a defendant challenges the reliability of a child’s testimony about sexual abuse, it is unfair to deprive him of the right to show that the child had personal knowledge of sexual acts and terminology. State v. Howard, 121 N.H. 53, 61 (1981). State v. Peterson, [ 35 Wash. App. 481, 485 (1983)]. Thus, the defendant in this case, because he had a reasonable suspicion and a good faith basis for the inquiry, should have been permitted a voir dire examination of the victim’s mother and of the victim to determine whether the victim had been sexually abused in the past. If the victim had been sexually abused in the past in a manner similar to the abuse in the instant case, such evidence would be admissible at trial because it is relevant on the issue of the victim’s knowledge about sexual matters. Id.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Commonwealth v. Owen“Yet, despite the general statutory policy prohibiting inquiry into a victim's prior sexual experiences, the Constitution requires that a defendant be permitted to introduce evidence which may materially affect the credibility of the victim's testimony.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“Before any [evidence of prior sexual abuse] is admitted, the judge should determine both that the past abuse is factually similar to the abuse in the case on trial and that the child victim displays knowledge of sexual matters beyond his or her years”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.