White v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “White was not precluded from arguing his account of the presence of the fingerprints because the state’s laboratory technician acknowledged that the position of the prints as he remembered them could have been consistent with White’s explanation. However, even if the position and direction of the prints had been as White contends, his account of how they came to be positioned in that manner would not have been established to the exclusion of the state’s explanation. Thus, while the position and direction of the prints might have been of some use to White in arguing his version of the facts, such contextual evidence can hardly be viewed as exculpatory in itself. Here, the materiality of the evidence is marginal at best and there exists no hint or suggestion of bad faith on the government’s part. White neither requested the item nor indicated the importance of the general type of evidence involved. In these circumstances, we hold that any resulting deprivation arising from a failure to preserve and produce the fingerprints’ position and direction does not rise to the level of a due process violation, and that the state’s failure to preserve and produce the position and direction of the fingerprints as found on the lamp did not violate Criminal Rule 16(b)(7).”

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

2. “The prints were available to White along with other evidence. The reliability of the fingerprint identification could thus be tested independently. Therefore, the situation differs from that in Lauderdale v. State, 548 P.2d 376 (Alaska 1976), where the results of the breathalyzer test could not be assessed independently because the control ampoule had been discarded.”

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