612 So. 2d 516 - Ex Parte Pierce’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2012
19 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 Collins v. Illinois · Dick v. Kemp · 435 So. 2d 766 - Ex Parte Womack · United States v. Chaney · Ex Parte Harrell
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Pierce argues that the victim's pocketbook, which had been given to the victim's daughter rather than taken into evidence at the crime scene, should not have been admitted into evidence at trial. Pierce contends that a weak chain of custody for the pocketbook creates a reasonable doubt as to his guilt. However, chain of custody problems relate to the reliability, rather than the admissibility, of the evidence. Williams v. State, 375 So.2d 1257, 1267 (Ala.Cr. App.), cert. denied, 375 So.2d 1271 (Ala. 1979). Any chain of custody problems would therefore be reflected in the weight given to such evidence by the jury, and the trial court did not err in admitting the pocketbook into evidence. Any evidence in the chain was not sufficient as to necessarily create a reasonable doubt. "Pierce also argues that the court erred in admitting the entire contents of the victim's pocketbook into evidence including material he says was irrelevant and prejudicial, such as records of the victim's donations to her church and in allowing these contents into the jury room during deliberations. At first blush, allowing the entire contents of the victim's pocketbook into the jury room may seem somewhat prejudicial to the defendant. However, the trial judge ruled that allowing the contents of the purse into evidence was neither irrelevant nor prejudicial. Inherent in the judge's ruling is a finding that the probative value of this evidence outweighed its prejudicial effects on the defendant. See C.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“"The Court may in any case, including capital cases , excuse or postpone the service of any prospective juror outside the presence of the parties and their counsel. . . ."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“`A judge in a capital case may excuse members of the venire outside the presence of the defendant and his counsel....'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.