State v. Barr’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

20 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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In the information the defendant is charged with having purposely killed the deceased, and, since the proofs showed that he could have had no intention to kill any particular person, it is claimed that the information was insufficient, or, if sufficient, was not supported by the proofs. In our opinion, the statement in the information as to the intent to kill the particular person would have béen sufficient in an indictment at common law, and would have been supported by proof of having done an act with intent to kill another person than the deceased, which resulted in the death of the person whom it was charged he intended to kill. But it is contended that our statute, which requires the fact to be stated in the information, controls, and that, even although this information would have been good at common law, it was not good under our statute, for the reason that the facts were not correctly stated therein. The information was proof against this attack for two reasons: First, that the facts were substantially stated, — the general intent to kill became special when the means made use of had taken effect on a particular person; and, secondly, our statute as to informations, when invoked, must be taken as a whole, and when so taken an information is good thereunder against an attack of this kind, unless it were possible that the defendant, could in some- manner have been misled thereby to his injury; and it is evident that this defendant, could not have been so misled by the”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Branham