People v. Fleming’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

30 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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““. . . Conceding that an appellate tribunal is without power to disturb the findings of the jury on the ground of claimed insufficiency of the evidence unless it be made to appear clearly that upon no hypothesis whatever is there sufficient substantial evidence to support the conclusion reached in the trial court, appellant nevertheless earnestly urges that the complaining witnesses did not have reasonable or adequate opportunity to observe, and therefore identify, their assailant and that their testimony in this regard challenges credulity. In this claim appellant can not be upheld. What was said by this court in People v. Hightower, 40 Cal.App.2d 102, 106 [ 104 P.2d 378 ], is particularly pertinent here. ‘While the claimed inconsistencies in the testimony of the foregoing witnesses, such as the positions they were in at the time when they claimed ability to see and identify appellant, as well as other claimed weaknesses in their testimony, undoubtedly afforded grounds for a forceful argument to the jury, nevertheless they cannot avail appellant as grounds for a reversal, because the evidence identifying a defendant as the perpetrator of the crime charged need not be positive and uncontradicted. As stated in People v. Farrington, 213 Cal. 459 [ 2 P.2d 814 ] : “The strength or weakness of the identification, the incompatibility of and discrepancies in the testimony, if there were any, and the uncertainties of witnesses in giving their testimony, were matters solely for the ob”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Taylor