508 So. 2d 306 - Spear v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently January 2011
13 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 368 So. 2d 871 - Cumbo v. State · Skelton v. City of Birmingham · Nichols v. State · Smarr v. State · 469 So. 2d 1371 - Averette 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“`inconclusive facts and circumstances tending prima facie to show the corpus delicti may be aided by the admissions or confession of the accused so as to satisfy the jury beyond a reasonable doubt, and so to support a conviction, although such facts and circumstances, standing alone, would not thus satisfy the jury of the existence of the corpus delicti.'”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“' Johnson [v. State, 473 So.2d 607, 608 (Ala.Cr.App. 1985),] (quoting C. Gamble, McElroy's Alabama Evidence § 304.01 (3d ed. 1977)).”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“`Independent evidence of the corpus delicti need not be of such probative strength as that such evidence, standing alone, in the opinion of the trial or appellate court, would, ought to or probably would satisfy a jury beyond a reasonable doubt of the existence of the corpus delicti. Independent evidence of the corpus delicti may consist solely of circumstantial evidence. Whether the independent evidence tending to prove the corpus delicti is sufficient to warrant a reasonable inference of the existence thereof depends, of course, upon the particular facts of each case.'”
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.