Wiley v. State’s Empirical Analysis
2002
Citation profile
37 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2021 · most notably Holmes v. South Carolina (2006), Walters v. State (2007)
37 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. McVeigh · Shade v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. · United States v. Stevens · Potier v. State · Matthews v. Price
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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In weighing probative value against Rule 403 counterfactors, courts must be sensitive to the special problems presented by “alternative perpetrator” evidence. Although a defendant obviously has a right to attempt to establish his innocence by showing that someone else committed the crime, he still must show that his proffered evidence regarding the alleged alternative perpetrator is sufficient, on its own or in combination with other evidence in the record, to show a nexus between the crime charged and the alleged “alternative perpetrator.””
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The danger of “confusion of the issues” and “misleading the jury” arises when circumstantial evidence tends to sidetrack the jury into consideration of factual disputes only tangentially related to the facts at issue in the current case. The classic explanation of this danger comes from Dean Wigmore: “The notion here is that, in attempting to dispute or explain away the evidence thus offered, new issues will arise as to the occurrence of the instances and the similarity of conditions, [and] new witnesses will be needed whose cross examination and impeachment may lead to farther issues.” 2 John H. Wigmore, Evidence § 443, at 528-29 (Chadbourn rev.1979). In short, the evidence is a “rabbit trail.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Trejos v. State“It is not sufficient for a defendant merely to offer up unsupported speculation that another person may have done the crime. Such speculative blaming intensifies the grave risk of jury confusion, and it invites the jury to render its findings based on emotion or prejudice.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Michaelwicz 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.