McMorris v. Israel’s Empirical Analysis
643 F.2d 458 · 1981
Citation profile
40 federal appellate · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 78 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2007 · most notably Perry v. Rushen (1983), Israel Et Al. v. McMorris (1982)
40 federal appellate · 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 Davis v. Alaska · Chambers v. Mississippi · United States v. Nixon · Washington v. Texas · County Court of Ulster Cty. v. Allen
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 78 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'may, in appropriate cases, bow to accommodate other legitimate interests in the criminal trial process.'”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Every state is generally free to exercise its sovereign prerogative as to the evidence it will admit in its courts. The federal constitution, however, imposes a limited restraint upon state evidentiary rules where exculpatory evidence is excluded by arbitrary state rules. Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14 , 87 S.Ct. 1920 , 18 L.Ed. 2d 1019 (1967). The genesis of this restriction is found in the defendant's sixth amendment right to "compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor." The Constitution imposes this limitation because the state may not deny an accused in a criminal trial the right to a fair opportunity to defend against the state's accusations. Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 294 , 93 S.Ct. 1038, 1045 , 35 L.Ed. 2d 297 (1973). However, "the right of a defendant to present relevant and competent evidence is not absolute and (may) `bow to accommodate other legitimate interests in the criminal trial process,'" Hughes v. Mathews, 576 F. 2d 1250, 1258 (7th Cir.), cert. dismissed, 439 U.S. 801 , 99 S.Ct. 43 , 58 L.Ed. 2d 94 (1978) (citing Chambers, 410 U.S. at 295 , 93 S.Ct. at 1045 , [ 35 L.Ed. 2d at 308 ]), although the competing state interests must be substantial to overcome the claims of the defendant. [ Alicea, supra, 675 F. 2d at 923 .]”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In essence, therefore, we find the prosecutor’s veto of the test in the instant case to be constitutionally impermissible because he stated no reasons which might be reviewed by the trial court. From all that appears, he was acting solely for tactical reasons in the belief that a test would not be helpful to his case.... Certainly, no proper state purpose is served by allowing a purely tactical veto power. We do not hold that Wisconsin may not absolutely refuse to admit polygraph evidence, or that a judge may not refuse to admit polygraph evidence in a particular case; we merely hold that it offends due process for the prosecutor, as an adversary, to exercise an unrestricted veto — unrelated on the record to any reasons appropriate to the stipulation requirement — over the significantly exculpatory evidence in the instant case. 643 F.2d at 466 (emphasis supplied).”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.