State v. Ballou’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 43 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 45 later decisions — most recently May 2005 · most notably State v. Bacon (1995), State v. Bishop (1969)
2 federal appellate · 43 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 National Safe Deposit Co. v. Stead · State v. Orlandi · State v. Barr · Platt v. City of New York · State v. Ciocca
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 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The word ‘possession’ is often ambiguous in its meaning. It is used to describe actual possession and also to describe constructive possession. Actual and constructive possession are often so blended that it is difficult to see where one ends and the other begins. National Safe Deposit Co. v. Stead, 232 U.S. 58 , 34 S.Ct. 209 , 58 L.Ed. 504 . Actual possession exists where the thing is in the physical control, or immediate occupancy of the party. Constructive possession is that which exists in contemplation of law without actual personal occupation. Constructive possession often refers to the person lawfully entitled to immediate physical possession and control. In criminal law possession usually means care, management, physical control, or the secret hiding or protection of something forbidden or stolen. See Bouvier’s Law Dictionary (3d Revision) ‘Possession’, 33 Words and Phrases, ‘Possession’, 71-101 and many cases there cited. “Possession is synonymous with occupied, held, or controlled; possession is the fact or condition of having such control of property that a person may enjoy it to the exclusion of all others who have no better right to it than himself; physical control of a thing is possession of it. See, Webster’s New International Dictionary.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Gellers · State v. Benneig“So, when the evidence is sufficient to enable the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that several persons have formed a common design to assault another, and are present for that purpose at the place agreed upon for the commission of the offense, each one is criminally responsible for the acts of the others in the prosecution of the design, and for everything done by any one of them, which follows incidentally in the execution of the design as one of its natural consequences, even though it was not intended as a part of the original plan.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Bacon
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.