Ridgway v. Bowman

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that if testimony serves a relevant pur- pose rather than solely conveying a credibility opinion, it does not violate the vouching rule
• explaining that an error “is less likely to be harmless where it relates to a central factual issue in the case”
• noting that “[w]hat a party says in closing argument is not evidence, and the jury was instructed on that point”
• explaining that an error is only harmless if it had “little likelihood of affecting the verdict” (inter- nal quotation marks omitted)
• noting that trial courts have no discretion to admit vouching testimony
• vouching is “cat- egorically inadmissible,” and it includes both “direct” com- ments on another witness’s credibility and statements that are “tantamount to a direct comment”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).