538 So. 2d 1216 - Watson v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"Accordingly, this cause must be reversed and remanded for a new trial. In the event that [the appellant] is retried, the trial court, in all likelihood, will find itself reckoning with a holding of Anonymous not advanced on this appeal. In the interest of judicial economy, we comment on that particular ruling in the context of this case. The Anonymous court's ruling that evidence of the defendant's prior sexual mistreatment of the prosecutrix is inadmissible is a clear departure from the seemingly established law of this state. The general rules allowing, in carnal knowledge prosecutions, incest prosecutions, and rape prosecutions, the admission of evidence showing a defendant's prior or subsequent acts indicating a sexual passion for the prosecutrix are expressed in Gamble, supra , at § 45.11(3), (4), and (5), respectively. Likewise, in Schroeder, Hoffman and Thigpen, Alabama Evidence , § 4-4(8) (1987), the following is observed: " '[I]n prosecutions for fornication, statutory rape and sodomy other similar acts are admissible as tending to show the relationships and intimacy of the parties. In rape cases, the state may introduce evidence that the accused made sexual overtures toward the victim before or even after the rape to show that the accused had a 'sexual passion for the victim.' A similar rule applies in incest cases.' (Footnotes omitted.) " See also Deason v. State , 363 So.2d 1001 , 1005 (Ala. 1978) (wherein the court observed that, in a carnal knowledge case, the ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 547 So. 2d 603 - Staten v. State

2. “"In . . . any . . . criminal proceeding involving a charge of sexual intercourse with a woman, the fact of the female's having given birth to a child in consequence of such intercourse is admissible. In such criminal charges as adultery, carnal knowledge and incest, for example, it has been held that evidence that a child was born to the woman involved, if the laws of nature would suggest that the time of conception was about the time of the claimed act of sexual intercourse, is *Page 1230 admissible. . . . It should be noted, however, that if the birth of the child occurred at such a time that conception at the time of the claimed intercourse was impossible, then proof of such birth is not admissible as tending to show the claimed intercourse."”

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

3. “"[I]n applying this Anonymous ruling to the facts of the instant case, we view it not as a prohibition to the introduction of the victim's testimony of prior sexual acts committed by Watson, for, although it apparently cannot be introduced as evidence of motive , it is admissible under the same exceptions [ i.e. , identity] that permit introduction of the evidence of Watson's assaults against the prosecutrix's sister." (Emphasis added.)”

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