Best v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently February 2022
10 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 Larrison v. United States · United States v. Costello · Martin v. State · Kyle v. United States · Pradlik v. State
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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[a] court may deny a motion for new trial without a hearing when all that is necessary for disposition is already on the record. " Id. at 389 (emphasis added). A hearing becomes necessary under Best when disposition of a motion for new trial cannot be made from the record. So it remains unexplained by the majority how an allegation of perjury can be examined simply by reference to a record. In this case, the trial judge seemed quite reassured that a principal prosecution witness had not perjured herself after both the prosecutor [2] and the prosecution witness, Wanda Hammond, simply reassured him that there had been no perjury. The trial judge then thought it unnecessary to hear live testimony from Wanda Hammond's sister-in-law who had signed an affidavit claiming Wanda Hammond lied at trial. This is adjudication in the face of ignorance. "A standard should be established for the circumstance * * *, that a court is not required to grant a new trial on affidavit evidence, but when there is reasonable evidence of material perjury, the trial court should hold an evidentiary hearing.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“1. The evidence has come to his knowledge since the trial; 2. It was not owing to the want of due diligence that it did not come sooner; 3. The evidence is so material that it would probably produce a different verdict; and 4. The evidence is not cumulative.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Barnes v. State“'testimony which has been repudiated by a party who gave it.’ ” Best v. State, 769 P.2d 385, 389 (Wyo.1989) (quoting State v. Nickerson, 320 N.C. 603 , 359 S.E.2d 760, 763 (1987)). In Best, 769 P.2d at 388-89 , we also stated,”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Lacey 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.