Case Citator › State v. Bigbee

State v. Bigbee

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Overruled in part
Court
Supreme Court of Tennessee
Citation
885 S.W.2d 797
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
54 of 54
Citing cases (total)
54
Treatment dates
2004–2024
Overruled in part
A reviewed court has overruled part of this case’s holding. State v. Bigbee was overruled in part and its prior conviction evidence rule was superseded by statute. State v. Odom explained that a 1998 amendment permits evidence of the facts underlying a prior violent felony in capital sentencing for offenses committed after the amendment.
More on how this was screened

State v. Thomas later abolished the accomplice corroboration rule for trials commencing after its mandate. The two confirmed treatments are listed below. All 54 flagged citations have been read.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

54 later cases cite State v. Bigbee; 54 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on State v. Bigbee?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Overruled in part

  • The court abolished the accomplice corroboration rule that Bigbee applied, prospectively for trials commencing after its mandate.

    State v. Thomas · Supreme Court of Tennessee · filed

    Our Court has described the accomplice-corroboration rule as follows: ... State v. Bigbee, 885 S.W.2d 797, 803 (Tenn. 1994) ... Today, we abolish Tennessee’s court-made accomplice-corroboration rule in its entirety. ... the rule will be abolished in its current form going forward and that change shall be applied to all trials commencing after the date of the mandate.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Superseded by statute

  • The 1998 amendment to Tennessee's capital sentencing statute displaced Bigbee's bar on evidence about the facts of an earlier violent felony when the conviction itself showed violence; the amendment did not apply to earlier offenses.

    State v. Odom · Supreme Court of Tennessee · filed

    When this pre-1998 version of the statute was applied to capital sentencing proceedings at which the State relied on the “prior violent felony” aggravating circumstance in Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-204(i)(2), this Court consistently held that it was “not appropriate to admit evidence regarding specific facts of the crime resulting in the previous conviction, when the conviction on its face shows that it involved violence or the threat of violence to the person.” State v. Bigbee, 885 S.W.2d 797, 811 (Tenn. 1994); see also State v. Stout, 46 S.W.3d 689, 701 (Tenn. 2001). In contrast, the 1998 amendment now mandates that such evidence is admissible and must be considered in determining the weight of Tennessee Code Annotated section 39-13-204(i)(2). ... In Powers, we unanimously held that a trial court erred by applying the 1998 amendment in a case where the offense occurred “before the effective date of the amendment.”
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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