154 W. Va. 771 - State v. Collins’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
70 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 70 later decisions — most recently March 2018 · most notably State v. Hankerson (1975), 158 W. Va. 905 - State v. Starr (1975)
70 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 State v. Greer · 6 Ga. App. 649 - Moone v. Smith · State v. Welch · State v. McCausland · 140 W. Va. 585 - State v. Bragg
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 70 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“When in a prosecution for murder the defendant relies upon self-defense to excuse the homicide and the evidence does not show or tend to show that the defendant was acting in self-defense when he shot and killed the deceased, the defendant will not be permitted to prove that the deceased was of dangerous, violent and quarrelsome character or reputation.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Instructions must be based upon the evidence and an instruction which is not supported by evidence should not be given.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“It is quite well established that, where self-defense is relied upon to excuse a homicide, and there is evidence tending to establish that defense, it is competent to show the character of the deceased party for violence, and specially is this true when the person charged with the crime has knowledge of such traits of character, for the evidence, not only to some extent characterizes the acts of the deceased, but also has a tendency to show the mental state in which the defendant was at the time to [sic] the homicide. In determining the guilt or innocense of one charged with murder, where self-defense is relied upon, the jury should, as near as possible, be put in the position of the accused. They must view the occurrence from his standpoint, for it is their province and function to determine whether or not he had reasonable ground to fear death or great bodily harm at the hands of the deceased. In order to do this intelligently, they should not only be informed of the physical surroundings of the occurrence at the time of the homicide, but as far as possible, be acquainted with the defendant’s mental attitude, so far as the same was induced by acts of the deceased at or before the homicide. And this mental attitude would not only be affected by acts of violence on the part of the deceased toward the defendant, but it would no doubt be materially affected if the defendant had knowledge of acts of violence committed by the deceased toward the defendant, but it would no doubt b”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.