Williams v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently March 2001 · most notably Livingston v. State (1987), Gardner v. State (1987)
32 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 Chapman v. State of California · Clemons v. State · Thompson v. State · Lyles v. State · Richardson 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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In this cause, in light of the facts adduced, the fact that appellant did not testify or offer any evidence, and the additional fact that appellant’s having previously been sentenced to the penitentiary was absolutely and totally irrelevant and immaterial to any issue of the case, we are able to conclude that the unresponsive answer of the witness, Chambers, was error. We further hold that such error was not curable by the instruction that trial judge gave to the jury. However, we also reluctantly hold that the error was not reversible error because of the harmless error doctrine of law. See Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 21-24 , 87 S.Ct. 824, 826-828 , 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). We are unable to state that there is a reasonable possibility that the part of the unresponsive answer of Chambers, which reflects that the appellant previously had been sentenced to the penitentiary, affected either the jury’s verdict of guilt or the punishment assessed.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Waldo v. State“[O]ur research also reveals that error will not necessarily be reflected in every unresponsive answer by a State’s witness which implicates a reference to the fact that a defendant has been ‘sent to’ or incarcerated in the penitentiary. Even where such prejudicial information is inadvertently placed before a jury, the general rule is still that an instruction by the trial judge to the jury to disregard such answer will be sufficient to cure any unresponsive answer.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Tennard v. State“Q That marriage relationship [between appellant and Chambers’ present wife] is it your understanding that that ended back in 1973 or approximately that time? A Yes sir, she got it annulled when he got sent to the penitentiary, [emphasis added]”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Tennard 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.