People v. Bowers’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 1 district · 40 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 44 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(1) An out-of-court statement made by a child ... describing any act of sexual contact, intrusion, or penetration ... performed with, by, on, or in the presence of the child declarant, not otherwise admissible by a statute or court rale which provides an exception to the objection of hearsay, is admissible in evidence in any criminal ... proceedings in which a child is a victim of an unlawful sexual offense ... if: (a) The court finds in a hearing conducted outside the presence of the jury that the time, content, and circumstances of the statement provide sufficient safeguards of reliability; and (b) The child either: (I) Testifies at the proceedings; or (II) Is unavailable as a witness and there is corroborative evidence of the act which is the subject of the statement.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. People v. Juvenile Court, City & County of Denver · People v. Wilson

2. “We are convinced that the term "corroborative evidence" in section 13-25-129(1)(b)(II) was intended to mean what the term clearly denotes—that is, evidence, direct or circumstantial, that is independent of and supplementary to the child's hearsay statement and that tends to confirm that the act described in the child's statement actually occurred. By way of example, and not by limitation, corroborative evidence may include any of the following: testimony from an eyewitness, other than the unavailable child-victim, whose statement is offered into evidence, that the offense occurred; statements of other children who were present when the act was committed against the victim; medical or scientific evidence indicating that the child was sexually assaulted; expert opinion evidence that the child-victim experienced post-traumatic stress consistent with the perpetration of the offense described by the child; evidence of other similar offenses committed by the defendant; the defendant's confession to the crime; or other independent evidence, including competent and relevant expert opinion testimony, tending to establish the commission of the act described in the child's statement. The consequences of adopting the alternative construction proposed by the People are obvious. Construing subsection 13-25-129(1)(b)(II) so as to permit a child's verbal or nonverbal assertions made during the course of a statement to be used as corroborative evidence of the act described in the statement wo”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 734 So. 2d 1116 - Delacruz v. State

3. “(1) Whether the statement was made spontaneously; (2) whether the statement was made while the child was still upset or in pain from the alleged abuse; (83) whether the language of the statement was likely to have been used by a child the age of the declarant; (4) whether the allegation was made in response to a leading question; (5) whether either the child or the hearsay witness had any bias against the defendant or any motive for lying; (6) whether any other event occurred between the time of the abuse and the time of the statement which could account for the contents of the statement; (7) whether more than one person heard the statement; and (8) the general character of the child.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. People v. Strean