State v. Thompson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

23 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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A charge of murder in the first degree includes homicides of lesser degree. If murder in the first degree were a capital crime while murder in lower degrees and rape were not, this court perceives no reason why a charge of the capital crime committed in connection with perpetration of rape, and a charge of rape, could not be joined.” “To illustrate: A man breaks and enters a dwelling house in the nighttime with felonious intent, and so commits burglary. He steals a large sum of money and much valuable jewelry, and so commits grand larcency. He ravishes a woman in the house. On being discovered in the house, he kills a man, and so commits murder. To conceal his crimes, he sets fire to the house, which burns, and he thus commits arson. These exhibitions of conduct are so concatenated in time, place, and circumstance, they constitute one composite event. The various felonies are separate, not in relation to each other, but only in definition in the statute book, and there is no reason why they should not be joined in separate counts of one information.” “The court does not deem it wise to state a fresh generalization respecting joinder of felony charges in the same information. To do so might hinder further development of the law to include unforeseen exceptional cases.””

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Barksdale · State v. Brown