650 So. 2d 793 - State v. Merrill’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently July 2014
15 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 Jackson v. Virginia · State v. Sepulvado · 384 So. 2d 355 - State v. Bonanno · 446 So. 2d 729 - State v. Prudholm · 425 So. 2d 1251 - State v. Telsee
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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] lack of positive identification or a defect in the chain of custody goes to the weight of the evidence rather than its admissibility. In order to introduce demonstrative evidence at trial, the law requires that the object be identified. This identification may be visual (i.e., by testimony at the trial that the object exhibited is the one related to the case) or it may be by chain of custody (i.e., by establishing the custody of the object from the time it was seized to the time it was offered in evidence.) The law does not require that the evidence as to custody eliminate all possibility that the object has been altered. For admission, it suffices that it is more probable than not that the object is the one connected to the case. (Citations omitted).”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Lewis · State v. Ashford
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.