Railing v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In the last case [referring to section 88] the offense is complete without the death of the woman or child. In both cases the grade of the offense is the same— felony. In both, the acts done by the prisoner are the same. In the first, if those acts are followed by the death of the mother or child as a consequence, that is, in the relation of effect to a cause, a difference results in one of the penalties imposed...... The facts which constitute the crime are precisely the same in both cases...... It follows that the death is no part of the facts which go to make up or constitute the crime. It is complete with the death or without it. The death therefore considered in and of itself is not a constituent element of the offense. It may happen or it may not. If it does not happen a certain possibility of penalty follows. If it does happen the same character of penalty results but with a larger possibility, not a certainty, in one of the items. This seems to be a precise expression of the difference between the cases provided for in the two sections.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 131 Pa. Super. 487 - Commonwealth v. Trombetta