Commonwealth v. Weiss’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 51 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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Guilty knowledge or guilty intent is, in general, an essential element in crimes at the common law, but statutes providing police regulations in many cases make certain acts penal where this element is wholly disregarded. The distinction is thus laid down in 3 Greenl. Ev., § 21: ‘The rule (i. e., that ignorance of fact will excuse) would seem to hold good in all cases where the act, if done knowingly, would be malum in se. But where a statute commands that an act be done or omitted, which, in the absence of such statute, might have been done or omitted without culpability, ignorance of the fact or state of things contemplated by the statute, it seems, will not excuse its violation. Thus, for example, where the law enacts the forfeiture of a ship having smuggled goods on board, and such goods are secreted on board by some of the crew, the owners and officers being alike innocently ignorant of the fact, yet the forfeiture is incurred notwithstanding their ignorance. Such is also the case in regard to many other fiscal, police and other laws and regulations, for the mere violation of which, irrespective of the motives or knowledge of the party, certain penalties are enacted; for the law in these cases seems to bind the parties to know the facts and to obey the law at their peril.’ To the same effect, also, is Wharton, Crim. Law, § 83, page 2442. “Whether a criminal intent, or a guilty knowledge, is a necessary ingredient of a statutory offence, therefore, is a matter of constru”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Criscuolo