143 Pa. Super. 394 - Commonwealth v. Stephens’s Empirical Analysis
1940
Citation profile
17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 19 later decisions — most recently April 1989
17 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. Exler · Commonwealth v. Roosnell · Commonwealth v. Burke · State v. Shepard · State v. Flaherty
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.
“[I]n Reg. v. Dee, supra, 15 Cox C.C. 579, at page 585, the court said: “Rape may be defined as sexual connection with a woman forcibly and without her will: (Reg. v. Fletcher, 8 Cox C.C. 134.) It is plain, however, ‘forcibly’ does not mean violently, but with that description of force which must be exercised in order to accomplish the act for there is no doubt that unlawful connéction with a woman in a state of unconsciousness, produced by profound sleep, stupor, or otherwise, if the man knows that the woman is in such a state, amounts to rape.” “It is settled by a chain of adjudication, too long and unbroken to be now shaken, that force is a necessary ingredient in the crime of rape. — Bishop on Crim.Law, § 411. The only relaxation of this rule is, that this force may be constructive. Under this relaxation, it has been held that where the female was an idiot, or had been rendered insensible by the use of drugs or intoxicating drinks, and, in one case, where she was under the age of ten years, she was incapable of consenting, and the law implied force. — Rex [Reg.] v. Ryan, 2 Cox’s C.C. 115; Commonwealth v. Fields, 4 Leigh, Va., 648; State v. Shepard, 7 Conn. 54 ; Regina v. Camplin, 1 Car. & Kir. 746; Bishop’s Cr.Law, § 343”. Lewis v. State, 30 Ala. 54 , at page 56, 68 Am. D .c. 113.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“In the present case the indictment was sufficient, and appellant's remedy, if it did not furnish sufficient information to enable him to prepare his defense, was by motion for a bill of particulars.”
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.