Buckley v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(1) whether the victim testifies at the trial and admits making the out-of-court statement; (2) whether the child is of a level of maturity to understand the need to tell the truth and to have the ability to observe, recollect, and narrate; (3) whether the child's out-of-court statement is corroborated by other evidence; (4) whether the child's out-of-court statement was spontaneously made in the child's own terminology or whether there is evidence of prior prompting or manipulation by adults; (5) whether the child's out-of-court statement is clear and unambiguous and rises to the needed level of certainty; (6) whether the statement is consistent; (7) whether the statement describes an event that a child of his or her age could not be expected to fabricate; (8) whether there is abnormal behavior by the child after the contact; (9) whether there is a motive for the child to fabricate the out-of-court statement; (10) whether the statement is against the interest of the child, e.g., the child expects punishment because of reporting the conduct; and (11) whether there was an opportunity under the evidence for the alleged act to have been committed by the defendant.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Lamerand v. State · Benny Joseph Walker v. State

2. “[[Image here]] Sec. 2. (a) This article applies only to statements that describe the alleged offense that: (1) were made by the child against whom the offense was allegedly committed; and (2) were made to the first person, 18 years of age or older, other than the defendant, to whom the child made a statement about the offense. (b) A statement that meets the requirements of Subsection (a) of this article is not inadmissible because of the hearsay rule if: (1) on or before the 14th day before the date the proceeding begins, the party intending to offer the statement: (A) notifies the adverse party of its intention to do so; (B) provides the adverse party with the name of the witness through whom it intends to offer the statement; and (C) provides the adverse party with a written summary of the statement; (2) the trial court finds, in a hearing conducted outside the presence of the jury, that the statement is reliable based on the time, content, and circumstances of the statement; and (3) the child testifies or is available to testify at the proceeding in court or in any other manner provided by law.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Rainey v. State · Buckley v. State

3. “The Bill Analysis of House Bill 579 (69th Legislature), which became Article 38.-072 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, sets forth the following under the heading “Background Information”: Under current rules of evidence, out-of-court statements offered at trial as proof of the matter are inadmissible as hearsay. Various exceptions to the hearsay rule exist when the circumstances make the out-of-court statements reliable. Currently, there are few exceptions for the statements of a child who is the victim of a crime, other than the general “excited utterance” exception developed in Texas case law. Buckley, 758 S.W.2d at 342-343 .”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re ZLB · Fetterolf v. State