135 W. Va. 618 - State v. Clay’s Empirical Analysis
1951
Citation profile
22 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently July 1994
22 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 128 W. Va. 655 - State v. Hudson · 131 W. Va. 141 - State v. Cutlip · State v. Chafin · State v. White · Meade 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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Here we have nothing but proof of his fraudulent manipulations in obtaining the insurance policies, and the fact that shortly thereafter the property insured was destroyed by fire. No witness places him at or near the scene of the crime within twenty-four hours of its commission, and the testimony of the witnesses who placed him elsewhere is not attempted to be disproved. Only suspicion remains, and this Court cannot act solely on suspicion. Suspicion must be upheld by testimony on clear circumstances which leave no hypothesis but that of guilt. The justified suspicion which the jury must have had, and which, by its verdict, it converted into a belief that the defendant was guilty of the crime alleged against him beyond all reasonable doubt, cannot be accepted by this Court as sufficient to uphold the verdict returned by it. We cannot say that the evidence in this case excludes every reasonable hypothesis that the burning was not committed by some one other than defendant, or by accidental means; and the proof, such as there is, being wholly circumstantial, does not rise to the exclusive nature required for a conviction. (My emphasis).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.