12 Va. App. 774 - Hancock v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[b]oth men were principals in the first degree. Both provided the direct means to ignite the fire. Placing the flammable material in place for another to ignite it makes that person a perpetrator.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Muhammad v. Com. · Muhammad v. Com.

2. ““Where the substantive crime intended requires a specific intent, though this intent does not in the same sense as in the other case aggravate what is done, still it adds a culpability which mere general malevolence could not give.... When we say that a man attempted to do a given wrong, we mean that he intended to do it specifically; and proceeded a certain way in the doing. The intent in the mind covers the thing in full; the act covers it only in part. * * * To commit murder, one need not intend to take life; but to be guilty of an attempt to murder, he must so intend. It is not sufficient that his act, had it proved fatal, would have been murder.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 20 Va. App. 562 - Haywood v. Commonwealth

3. “necessary to be shown [in cases of arson] is any amount, provided there is a perceptible wasting of the fiber of the building or object which is a subject of arson, or some part of that building or object, by fire.'”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 41 Va. App. 61 - Schwartz v. Commonwealth