State v. Lanam’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 37 later decisions — most recently February 2022 · most notably 190 W. Va. 711 - Teter v. Old Colony Co. (1994), State v. Townsend (1994)
2 federal appellate · 32 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 Ohio v. Roberts · Idaho v. Wright · Maryland v. Craig · United States v. Inadi · 103 Wash. 2d 165 - State v. Ryan
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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““[T]he focus is not on all the circumstances, including evidence at trial corroborating the child’s statements, but only on those circumstances actually surrounding the making of the statements. These circumstances include, but are not limited to, whether the statements were spontaneous, whether the person talking with the child had a preconceived idea of what the child should say, whether the statements were in response to leading or suggestive questions, whether the child had any apparent motive to fabricate, and whether the statements are the type of statements one would expect a child of that age to fabricate.””
6 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Edwards · State v. Larson“[The statute] does not mean that the court is to question the child on the details of possible testimony, but rather means that the court should determine in a general way whether the child remembers or can relate events truthfully. The jury will judge the child’s credibility and decide the weight to assign the testimony. A competency hearing is not a credibility hearing. Competency concerns the child’s ability to be truthful and to understand the importance of telling the truth in court. It also concerns the child’s ability to remember and relate events. Whether a child is easily led goes more to credibility than to competency. Even adults at trial become inconsistent upon cross-examination. It is the jury’s province to sort out the inconsistencies and determine credibility, the court’s province to determine competency. Where the court is in doubt as to the child’s competency, it is best to err on the side of determining the child to be competent.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Scott · State v. Manley“A child under ten years of age is a competent witness unless the court finds that the child lacks the capacity to remember or to relate truthfully facts respecting which the child is examined.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Gruwell v. State · State v. Oslund
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.