Menefee v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
33 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 33 later decisions — most recently February 2017 · most notably Thomas v. State (1981), Gardner v. State (1987)
33 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 168 Tex. Crim. 615 - Puckett v. State · 165 Tex. Crim. 535 - Brown v. State · 140 Tex. Crim. 540 - Moynahan v. State · 160 Tex. Crim. 237 - Womack v. State · 165 Tex. Crim. 35 - Caka 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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“And Virse, I don’t believe I have ever seen anybody that I thought was any more honest than she is.” The Menefee court found that this argument injected the prosecutor’s personal opinion of the witness’s credibility and was not a deduction from the evidence. Id. at 168 (emphasis added). Menefee is distinguishable from Smith’s case, however, because the State's jury argument in Menefee was readily identifiable as the prosecutor's personal opinion. Conversely, the prosecutor's argument at Smith’s trial included no words like”
3 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Simons v. State · De Leon v. State“This Court has on many occasions condemned any effort on the part of the State to bolster the credibility of its witnesses by unsworn testimony. Moynakan v. State, 140 Tex.Cr.R. 540 , 146 S.W.2d 376 ; Gonzales v. State, 159 Tex. Cr.R. 108, 261 S.W.2d 577 ; Womack v. State, Tex.Cr.App. [ 160 Tex.Cr.R. 237 ], 268 S.W.2d 140 ; Caka v. State, [165 Tex. Cr.R. 35], 302 S.W.2d 939 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Bush v. State“In Puckett , the State argued in closing: Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, the police officers that testified in this case are sworn to tell the truth and I am telling you that they are telling you the truth.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. De Leon 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.