Richardson v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1920
Citation profile
19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 19 later decisions — most recently November 1990
19 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 Horton v. Commonwealth · Jones v. Commonwealth · Lewis v. Commonwealth · Gray v. Commonwealth · Byrd v. Commonwealth
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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Now in the case before us there was no previous grudge, the homicide was committed in the course of a sudden quarrel, in mutual combat, upon a sudden provocation, which was unquestionably resented, and the provocation, was more than ‘very slight.’ Whether the evidence shows that the killing was done in justifiable self-defense, it is unnecessary for us to decide; but it was certainly accompanied with such circumstances of extenuation that malice, and hence murder, could not be presumed from the fact of the killing. There was no other evidence of malice in the case. This being so, there was no evidence whatever before the jury to support their verdict of murder in the second degree.” (Italics supplied.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““It has been long settled that where a homicide is committed in the course of a sudden quarrel, or mutual combat, or upon a sudden provocation and without any previous grudge, and the killing is from the sudden heat of passion growing solely out of the quarrel, or combat, or provocation, it is not murder, but is manslaughter only—voluntary manslaughter, if there be no further justification, and involuntary 'manslaughter if the killing be done in the commission of some lawful act, such as in justifiable self-defense. Byrd’s Case [Byrd v. Commonwealth], 89 Va. 536 , 16 S. E. 727 ; Read’s Case [Read v. Commonwealth] , 22 Gratt. (63 Va.) 924.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.