McGuff v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 45 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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““We do not doubt the correctness of the court’s ruling in refusing to compel the infant to submit to an examination of her person by medical experts, on motion of the defendant made at the trial. Such a practice has never prevailed in this state, and if adopted as matter of right in all cases of prosecution for rape, the temptation to its abuse would be so great that it might be perverted into an engine of oppression to deter many modest and virtuous females from testifying in open court against the perpetration of one of the most barbarous and detestable of all crimes. We have repeatedly held that a conviction for rape may be sustained on the uncorroborated testimony of a prosecutrix, which excludes the idea of any necessity for corroboration by an examination of her person, either by medical experts or others. In Barnett v. State, 83 Ala. 40 , we accordingly held there was no error in the trial court’s refusal to advise the jury not to convict, unless the testimony was corroborated by an examination of her person by medical or other experts, and that her refusal to submit to such examination would subject her evidence to discredit. ‘However forcible,’ we observed, ‘such a suggestion may be, under some circumstances, as an argument to a jury, the law does not require it. ’ It is true that, in divorce cases, the courts of this country and of England, as also of Scotland and Prance, have exerted their jurisdiction to compel the parties to suits to submit to a surgical examinat”

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