Styers v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
659 F.2d 293 · 1981
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 42 later decisions — most recently June 2025 · most notably State v. Chapple (1983), United States v. Nersesian (1987)
20 federal appellate · 4 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 United States v. Wade · Neil v. Biggers · Stovall v. Denno · Manson v. Brathwaite · Stone v. Powell
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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the factors to be considered in evaluating the likelihood of misidentification include the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of attention, the accuracy of the witness’ prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and the length of time between the crime and the confrontation.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The dramatic difference between the color shots and the black and white mug shots, combined with the officer's implication that [the witness] was expected to choose a couple of photos, was highly suggestive”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the totality of the circumstances, including the suggestive procedure used by the police.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.