State v. Phelps’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

54 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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Section 491.050, RSMo 1969, V.A.M.S., provides that a person who has previously been convicted of a criminal offense is a competent witness, but the conviction may be proved to affect his credibility, that is, as affecting his worthiness of belief. In this case the prosecutor argued to the jury that it could consider defendant’s previous conviction of a crime in its determination of whether the defendant was telling the truth when he testified. That was not objectionable. However, it is improper to argue the existence of prior unconnected crimes as a basis for a conviction in the case on trial, State v. Mobley, Mo., 369 S.W.2d 576, 580 , and it reasonably could be said, when considered alone, that the words of the prosecutor were to that effect when he said to the jury that it could consider previous conviction of crime ‘in determining whether or not this man committed the crime; in determining whether or not this man came to Harley Simpson’s station.’ But, when the total comment is considered in context it is equivocal and is at least subject to the argument that what the prosecutor said was that a previous conviction of a crime could be considered in determining whether the defendant was telling the truth when he testified that he did not commit the robbery and was not at the service station.””

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