8 Utah 2d 188 - State v. Herrera’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “If the line of cross-examination indulged here were to be permitted, the accused would find himself in a wilderness without witnesses, since none would volunteer the truth nor would the truth flow free under compulsory process, a witness knowing the extent to which he could be subjected to questions not pertinent to the issues involved, but designed to destroy his veracity by the simple device of calling attention to a series of incidents in his past life, perhaps harmless per se, perhaps true but having nothing to do with his truthfulness or the lack of it. The sheer weight of such marshall-ing of innuendoes well might unfairly make it appear that his telling of the truth would be a remote likelihood. Such technique takes on a complexion equally objectionable with untruthfulness itself, since it is a saber thrust directed at character assassination by the sharp edge of the half-truth.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Starks