People v. Best’s Empirical Analysis
1936
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 56 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 61 later decisions — most recently June 2019 · most notably 25 Cal. 3d 668 - People v. Flannel (1979), 53 Cal. 2d 322 - People v. Wade (1959)
3 federal appellate · 56 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 Commonwealth v. Colandro · People v. Wright · 33 Cal. App. 426 - People v. Schmidt · People v. Muhlner · People v. Gilmore
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 61 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“`[I]f the act is committed under the influence of an uncontrollable fear of death or great bodily harm, caused by the circumstances, but without the presence of all the ingredients necessary to excuse the act on the ground of self-defense, the killing is manslaughter' [citation].”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“[T]he evidence and the inferences reasonably to be drawn therefrom may be sufficient to warrant the jury in concluding that, though the killing was not justifiable under a plea of self-defense, it was done under such circumstances as to reduce the offense to voluntary manslaughter. * * * “The dividing line between self-defense and this character of manslaughter seems to be the existence, as the moving force, of a reasonably founded belief of imminent peril to life or great bodily harm, as distinguished from the influence of an uncontrollable fear or terror, conceivable as existing, but not reasonably justified by the immediate circumstances. If the circumstances are both adequate to raise, and sufficient to justify, a belief in the necessity to take life in order to save oneself from such a danger, where the belief exists and is acted upon, the homicide is excusable upon the theory of self-defense * * * while, if the act is committed under the influence of an uncontrollable fear of death or great bodily harm, caused by the circumstances, but without the presence of all the ingredients necessary to excuse the act on the ground of self-defense, the killing is manslaughter.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“"If defendant had reasonable grounds to believe that it was necessary to shoot Terry to save herself from death or great bodily harm, she did not use excessive force in shooting him. Furthermore, when one who is fighting in self-defense uses excessive force he is guilty of voluntary manslaughter... . There was in this case no evidence which would have justified a verdict of involuntary manslaughter."”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Griffiths
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.