Dodson v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1933
Citation profile
22 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently September 2018
22 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 McCoy v. Commonwealth · Jackson v. Commonwealth · Jackson v. Commonwealth · Wallen v. Commonwealth · Hodges v. Commonwealth
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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Homicide in defense of person or property, under certain circumstances of necessity; which is justifiable by the permission of the law. This takes place when a man, in defense of his person, habitation or property, kills another, who manifestly intends and endeavors, by violence or surprise, to commit a forcible or atrocious felony upon either. In the cases to which this ground of justification applies, no felony has been committed, but only attempted; and the homicide is justifiable in order to prevent it. "All felonies may not be so prevented. A distinction is made between such felonies as are attended with force, or any extraordinary degree of atrocity, which in their nature betoken such urgent necessity as will not allow of any delay, and others of a different kind and unaccompanied by violence on the part of the felon. Those only which come within the former description may be prevented by homicide; as murder, rape, robbery, arson, burglary and the like. In the attempt to commit either of these, the party whose person or property is attacked is not obliged to retreat, but may pursue his adversary until he has secured himself from all danger, and if he kill him in so doing, it is called justifiable self-defense."”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““ * * * ‘a person assaulted while in the discharge of a lawful act, and reasonably apprehending that his assailant will do him bodily harm, has the right to repel the assault by all the force he deems necessary, and is not compelled to retreat from his assailant, but may, in turn, become the assailant, inflicting bodily wounds until his person is out of danger.’ ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.