State v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
86 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 91 later decisions — most recently August 2021 · most notably State v. Garcia (1992), State v. Maestas (2006)
86 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 Burks v. United States · Rideout v. United States · Neal v. State of California · State v. Roy · State v. Tanton
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 91 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Some crimes, such as murder, are defined in terms of acts causing a particular result plus some mental state which need not be an intent to bring about that result. .Thus, if A, B, and C have each taken the life of another, A acting with intent to kill, B with an intent to do serious bodily injury, and C with a reckless disregard of human life, all three are guilty of murder because the crime of murder is defined in such a way that any one of these mental states will suffice. However, if the victims do not die from their injuries, then only A is guilty of attempted murder; on a charge of attempted murder it is not sufficient to show that the defendant intended to do serious bodily harm or that he acted in reckless disregard for human life. Again, this is because intent is needed for the crime of attempt, so that attempted murder requires an intent to bring about that result described by the crime of murder (i.e., the death of another).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[W]here there is but a single violent act and multiple victims, the societal harm is greater. And, thus, the greater the harm, the greater the need to deter such conduct. To hold otherwise would encourage singleaet-multiple-victim type crimes.... As stated by Justice Traynor in Neal v. State, 55 Cal.2d 11 , 9 Cal.Rptr. 607, 612 , 357 P.2d 839, 844 (1960), “A defendant who commits an act of violence with the intent to harm more than one person or by a means likely to cause harm to several persons is more culpable than a defendant who harms only one person.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. House“Even if the perpetrator had no specific intent to kill anyone, he would be guilty of depraved mind murder in the event someone dies as a result of his actions, because he acted in a manner greatly dangerous to others.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Hernandez
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.