Watson v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
58 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 58 later decisions — most recently April 2005 · most notably Royster v. State (1981), Turner v. State (1991)
58 state decisions
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 Greene v. Massey · Sansone v. United States · Sparf v. United States · Berra v. United States · Day v. State
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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Any theory legitimately arising out of the evidence in a case imposes upon the court the duty of submission by appropriately instructing upon the law governing it; and this, without regard to the strength or weakness of the supporting facts. Uniform with the previous rulings of this court is the doctrine here declared, viz.: The charge of the court must make a pertinent application of the law covering every theory arising out of the evidence; that the duty is not dependent upon the court’s judgment of the strength or weakness of the testimony supporting the theory, it being the prerogative of the jury to pass upon the probative force of the testimony.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Tenner v. State““In the case at bar, it appears that Chief Waits, although basing his knowledge of appellant’s bad reputation on his ‘rap sheet’ as well as the facts of the offense for which he was on trial, never discussed appellant’s reputation with anyone else. ... We have concluded however, that the error in permitting the witness to testify was harmless. Wait’s testimony was extremely terse, without embellishment.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Hoffert v. State““(a) A person commits an offense if, in the course of committing theft as defined in Chapter 31 of this code and with intent to obtain or maintain control of the property he: “(1) intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes bodily injury to another; or “(2) intentionally or knowingly threatens or places another in fear of imminent bodily injury or death.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Autry v. State
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.