463 So. 2d 1087 - Hester v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 48 later decisions — most recently April 2018 · most notably 481 So. 2d 203 - Fisher v. State (1985), Lockett v. State (1987)
47 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 Illinois v. Gates · Carroll v. United States · Locke v. The United States · 430 So. 2d 832 - Read v. State · Westbrook 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 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is always insufficient where assuming all to be proved which the evidence tends to prove, some other hypothesis may still be true, for it is the actual exclusion of every other hypothesis which invests mere circumstances with the force of truth. Whenever, therefore, the evidence leaves it indifferent which of several hypotheses is true, or merely establishes some finite probability in favor of one hypothesis rather than another, such existence cannot amount to proof, however great the probability may be.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Dunaway v. State · Steele v. State“It is fundamental that convictions of crime cannot be sustained on proof which amounts to no more than a possibility or even when it amounts to a probability, but it must rise to the height which will exclude every reasonable doubt; that when in any essential respect the state relies on circumstantial evidence, it must be such as to exclude every other reasonable hypothesis than that the contention of the state is true, and that throughout the burden of proof is on the state. It is our duty here to maintain these principles.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“to the exclusion of every reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.