Ex parte Edgington’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 1 district · 6 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The petition for the writ of habeas corpus in this case, and the return thereto, to which there is no exception, shows that the petitioner is detained in custody by virtue of a final judgment of a justice of the peace of Virginia City, convicting him of violating an ordinance of that corporation. It is conceded that the justice of the peace had jurisdiction of the offense charged, as well as of the prisoner, and that a legal ordinance authorizes the judgment. Such being the case, it is made our imperative duty to remand the prisoner by the plain terms of our habeas corpus act (1 Compiled Laws, See. 367), and we cannot, without pronouncing an extra-judicial opinion, undertake to decide whether the business of the petitioner was carried on within the corporate limits of Virginia City or not. That was a question to be decided on the trial, and if it was decided erroneously in point either of law or fact, the remedy is by appeal and not by habeas corpus.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Russell v. Kees