Harper v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1998
Citation profile
28 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably Burton v. State (2002), Duke v. State (2004)
28 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 United States v. Young · National Organization for Women, Inc. v. Idaho · Lindsey v. Louisiana · Hopkinson v. State · Stephens v. State
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[w]hen the prosecutor asserts his credibility or personal belief, an additional factor is injected into the case. This additional factor is that counsel may be perceived by the jury as an authority whose opinion carries greater weight than their own opinion; that members of the jury might be persuaded not by the evidence, but rather by a perception that counsel’s opinions are correct because of his position as prosecutor, an important state official entrusted with enforcing the criminal laws of a sovereign state. While the prosecutor is expected to be an advocate, he may not exploit his position to induce a jury to disregard the evidence or misapply the law.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Burton v. State · Lane v. State“Plain error in closing argument must remain hard to find because otherwise the trial court becomes charged with an adversary responsibility to control argument even when objection is not taken by the opposing attorney.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“A basic premise in our criminal law is that the burden of proof rests upon the State and never shifts.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.