Whitehurst v. Wright’s Empirical Analysis
592 F.2d 834 · 1979
Citation profile
57 federal appellate · 1 district · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 106 later decisions — most recently May 2018 · most notably United States v. Phillips (1981), United States v. Cisneros-Gutierrez (2008)
57 federal appellate · 1 district · 14 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 Roe v. Wade · United States v. Grinnell Corp. · The Boeing Company v. Daniel C. Shipman · Bates v. State Bar · Robertson v. Wegmann
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 106 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“impeachment by prior inconsistent statement may not be permitted where employed as a mere subterfuge to get before the jury evidence not otherwise admissible.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“such pervasive bias and prejudice ... as would constitute bias against a party”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Mrs. Whitehurst contends that the trial court erroneously refused to allow her to impeach her own witness .... The witness, Detective Cecil Humphrey of the Montgomery Police Department, was called solely to establish whether he had fired the single spent round in the gun found next to Whitehurst’s body. Humphrey denied that he had fired the gun, and Mrs. Whitehurst was aware that he would so testify. Nevertheless, she called him to the stand with the express purpose of impeaching him with an out of court statement made by Humphrey to his friend, Lt. J. C. Cunningham, to the effect that he had fired the gun. . . . Mrs. Whitehurst asserts on appeal that she would have called Lt. Cunningham “to establish Humphrey’s role concerning the pistol firing .... ” To use a prior inconsistent statement in that manner exceeds the scope of impeachment, and is an attempt to use hearsay evidence for substantive purposes. We do not believe that the rules of evidence espouse such a revolutionary approach to circumvent the traditional principles of hearsay.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Gage
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.