50 Md. App. 349 - Fletcher v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
30 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently November 2019 · most notably Smallwood v. State (1990), Ebb v. State (1996)
30 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 Davis v. Alaska · Dunn v. United States · Douglas v. Alabama · Alford v. United States · Time, Inc. v. Bon Air Hotel, Inc.
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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"[F]or purposes of cross-examination of a prosecution witness in order to show bias or motive, ‘[T]he crux of the inquiry insofar as its relevance is concerned, is the witness' state of mind. What is essential to the preservation of the right to cross-examine is that the interrogator be permitted to probe into whether the witness is acting under a hope or belief of leniency or reward,’”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Ebb v. State · Smallwood v. State“The determination of whether there has been an abuse of discretion necessarily requires consideration of the particular circumstances bearing upon each individual case. Clearly, the absolute preclusion of cross-examination pertaining to a witness’s motive for testifying would be an abuse of discretion, but beyond that we must look to such factors as the scope of interrogation permitted, how relevant the particular inquiry is to bias or motive, and whether the defendant has been prejudiced by the court’s ruling.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“What counts is whether the witness may be shading his testimony in an effort to please the prosecution. “A desire to cooperate may be formed beneath the conscious level, in a manner not apparent even to the witness, but such a subtle desire to assist the state nevertheless may cloud perception.” It is easy to see how the witness could have concluded logically that his failure to testify as he had promised or as was expected of him might have adverse consequences.”
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.