Tortolito v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
40 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 41 later decisions — most recently March 2025 · most notably State v. Easter (1996), 138 Wash. 2d 466 - State v. Sweet (1999)
40 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 Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Escobedo v. Illinois · Brecht v. Abrahamson · Doyle v. Ohio · Great Northern Ry Co v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co
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 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A comment on an accused's silence occurs when used to the State's advantage either as substantive evidence of guilt or to suggest to the jury that the silence was an admission of guilt.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“constitutional right to silence exists at all times-before arrest, at arrest, and after arrest; before a Miranda warning and after it”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a mere reference to silence which is not a `comment' on the silence is not reversible error absent a showing of prejudice.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.