Hester v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently October 2015
2 federal appellate · 18 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 Jett v. Commonwealth · State v. Logue · Pendleton v. Commonwealth · Lantrip v. Commonwealth · Bussey v. Commonwealth
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“aura of special reliability and trustworthiness”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““Appellant also contends the trial court erroneously permitted Richard Welch, who holds a Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work, to testify concerning statements made to him by Amanda and also erred in admitting his testimony concerning what he denominated as ‘sexual abuse accommodation syndrome.’ Amanda was referred to Richard Welch by the Commonwealth Attorney for an evaluation. He testified that she told him her father engaged in repeated acts of intercourse with her and that she did not report this fact immediately because she was afraid. As indicated, Amanda had previously testified in a similar vein. We find nothing in the record to establish or indicate that the history given to Richard Welch by Amanda was for the purposes of treatment. Instead, it ap pears she was referred for evaluation. Welch’s testimony goes to establish the truth of the matters stated to him because he testified: ‘Her behavior subsequent to the incident fulfills the guidelines of the Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome. Few children have been found to exaggerate or invent crimes of sexual molestation.’ “Welch listed five distinct elements of the sexual abuse accommodation syndrome. They were, (1) secrecy, (2) helplessness, (3) entrapment and accommodation, (4) delay in disclosure, and (5) retraction. He said that Amanda fit all of the categories except that she had not retracted her story.” “There was no evidence that the so-called ‘sexual abuse accommodation syndrome’ has attained a scientific a”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.