Pitman v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1906
Citation profile
43 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 45 later decisions — most recently June 1984 · most notably Skumro v. State (1936), Orr v. State (1932)
43 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 Ex parte Acree · Gilmore v. State · Pickens v. State · Turner v. State · Bowen v. State
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 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In view of this conflict of opinion in our own decisions, we remark, first, that such a charge is not proper at all, except in those cases where there is evidence pointing to one or more persons other than the defendant; second, it is not proper if the nature of the offense is such that both may have been guilty; third, if allowed at all, a ‘theory’ hypothesized should be a reasonable theory. Coming to the case now before the court, it will be readily seen that the charge would be improper, because it does not negative the guilt of the defendant. The nature of the offense is such that two men might commit it, at different times, so that it might be, not only probable, but true, that some other person may have committed the same offense and yet the defendant have been guilty also.””
2 later decisions 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.