Forte v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[Ajppellant in the instant case did not meet his burden of proving either the validity of the scientific theories underlying [the] expert testimony or the validity of the method used for applying the theories. There is no evidence that the theories underlying [the] expert testimony are accepted as valid by the relevant scientific community, or that the alleged existing literature on the theories support or reject these theories. Although [the witness] stated that there was a “very large body1 of literature concerning eyewitness identification, he only mentioned the name of one other person who purports to be an expert in the field and he failed to identify or produce the scientific literature that he allegedly relied on to reach his conclusions.”

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

2. “If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise.”

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