Commonwealth v. Seese’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
162 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 162 later decisions — most recently October 2019 · most notably 628 So. 2d 1116 - State v. Foret (1993), State v. Spigarolo (1989)
162 state decisions — followed in 11 states
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 Commonwealth v. O'SEARO · Commonwealth v. Nasuti · Commonwealth v. Leslie · Burton v. Horn & Hardart Baking Co. · Collins v. Zediker
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 162 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he question of whether a particular witness is testifying in a truthful manner is one that must be answered in reliance upon inferences drawn from the ordinary experiences of life and common knowledge as to the natural tendencies of human nature, as well as upon observations of the demeanor and character of the witness, [citation omitted] The phenomenon of lying, and situations in which prevarications might be expected to occur, have traditionally been regarded as within the ordinary facility of jurors to access. For this reason, the question of a witness’ credibility has routinely been regarded as a decision reserved exclusively for the jury [citation omitted].”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Such testimony, admitted as evidence, would encourage jurors to shift their focus from determining the credibility of the particular witness who testified at trial, allowing them instead to defer to the so-called “expert” assessment of the truthfulness of the class of people of which the particular witness is a member.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the essence of [the expert's] response was that, based upon her own experience, young children usually do not fabricate stories of sexual abuse because they do not have sexual knowledge sufficient to supply details regarding sexual encounters. Thus, the testimony consisted of expert opinion as to the veracity of the class of potential witnesses of which the victim was a member.”
4 later decisions 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.