Covington v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 59 state decisions

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 62 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"A majority of the courts which have considered the issue permit such evidence only if the defendant makes a showing out of the presence of the jury that the witness' prior allegations of sexual assault were false , as, for example, where the charges somehow had been disproved or where the witness had conceded their falsity. See, e.g., State v. Hutchinson , 141 Ariz. 583 , 688 P.2d 209 , 211-13 (App. 1984); People v. Alexander , 116 Ill. App.3d 855 , 72 Ill.Dec. 338 , 452 N.E.2d 591 (1st Dist. 1983); Commonwealth v. Bohannon , [ 376 Mass. 90 ], 378 N.E.2d [987] at 991-92 [(1978)]; State v. Anderson , [ 211 Mont. 272 ], 686 P.2d 193 , 198-201 (Mont. 1984); State v. Demos , 94 Wn.2d 733 , 619 P.2d 968 , 970 (1980)." Covington v. State , 703 P.2d 436 , 442 (Alaska App. 1985) (emphasis added).”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Brown v. State · Morgan v. State

2. “Covington’s victim was his natural daughter, D.C.O. She testified at trial that Covington began sexually abusing her when she was nine or ten years old. D.C.O. was eighteen years old at the time of trial. D.C.O. testified that Cov-ington slept with her, touched her breasts, and penetrated her vagina with his finger. After D.C.O.’s mother’s death in November 1977 when D.C.O. was thirteen years old, Covington told her that she reminded him of her mother and had D.C.O. sleep with him in his bed. Shortly before D.C.O.’s sixteenth birthday [in approximately 1980], Covington began having sexual intercourse with her. D.C.O. testified that she had sexual intercourse with Covington “practically every night,” until she moved out in March 1983 [when she was eighteen years of age]. Covington allegedly told her that he did not want her to “grow up naive like [her] mother.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Covington v. State · 712 So. 2d 348 - RLG v. State

3. “in its discretion, [to] elect the act upon which it will rely for conviction. Alternatively, if the jury is instructed that - all [twelve] jurors must agree that the same underlying criminal act has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, a unanimous verdict on one criminal act will be assured. When the State chooses not to elect, this jury instruction must be given to ensure the jury’s understanding of the unanimity, requirement.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Baker v. State · State of Tennessee v. Jimmy Dale Qualls