Harris v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1958
Citation profile
21 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently October 2015
21 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 Brannen v. State of Florida · Holton v. State · Bailey v. State · Linsley v. State · Peele 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"[5] A person may act upon appearances as they appear to him at the time, even to the extent of taking human life if he honestly and actually believes and the attending circumstances and conditions are such that a reasonably cautious and prudent person would believe that he or some member of his family is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm at the hands of the deceased. The danger need not be real or actual, but the appearance of danger must be both real and imminent and the slayer must honestly believe it is necessary to act in order to save his own life or that of a member of his family from death or great personal injury in order to constitute justification. He must actually and reasonably believe the danger to be actual and the necessity real. * * * "[6-8] The Jury are the sole judges of the credibility of the witnesses and the weight of the evidence, but not solely of its sufficiency. Bailey v. State, 76 Fla. 213 , 79 So. 730 . If the verdict is supported by the evidence it will not be disturbed on appeal. The legal effect of competent evidence which is not impeached, discredited or controverted is a question of law."”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[W]hen a person is in his own home and he or the members of his family are assaulted or placed in apparent imminent danger of great personal injury, he has the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, even to the extent of taking life if he actually believes, and the circumstances and surrounding conditions are such that a reasonably cautious and prudent person would believe, danger of death or great personal injury to be imminent, at the hands of [the] assailant.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Imminent means near at hand, mediate rather than immediate, close rather than touching.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Brown v. State
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.