People v. Wheeler’s Empirical Analysis
1946
Citation profile
12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently November 1960
12 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 24 Cal. 2d 177 - People v. Alcalde · People v. Sprague · 58 Cal. App. 2d 764 - People v. Flores · People v. Sloper · 18 Cal. App. 359 - People v. Lewis
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Appellant relies upon People v. Hicks, 53 Cal. 354 , where the court instructed the jury that ‘a witness false in one part of his testimony is to be distrusted in others, ’ and refused to give a requested instruction ‘that if they believed any witness had, upon the stand, wilfully sworn falsely in respect to any matter material to the issue on trial, that they should disregard his testimony altogether. ’ There the court said, citing People v. Sprague, 53 Cal. 491 , that ‘the correct interpretation of subd. 3 of sec. 2061 of the Code of Civil Procedure is, that a witness wilfully false in one part of his testimony is to be distrusted in others. Assuming this to be the correct construction, the effect of this provision is that if a witness is wilfully false in one portion of his testimony he “is to be distrusted in others”; and not that his whole testimony is to be absolutely rejected. ’ ””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. People v. Denton““A witness wilfully false in one material part of his testimony is to be distrusted in others; that is to say, the jury may reject the whole of the testimony of a witness who has wilfully sworn falsely as to a material point, and the jury, being convinced that a witness has stated what was untrue, as to a material point, not as a result of mistake or inadvertence, but wilfully and with the design to deceive, may treat all of his testimony with distrust and suspicion, and reject all unless they shall be convinced that he has in other particulars sworn to the truth. ’ ’”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. People v. Denton
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.