Mattingly v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1916
Citation profile
29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently June 1987 · most notably Powell v. State (1932), Burrows v. State (1931)
29 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 Talbott v. Commonwealth · Marlowe v. Commonwealth · Commonwealth v. Franks · Commonwealth v. Davis · Cullins v. Williams
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Upon the question of jurisdiction the only point raised here that is not concluded by former decisions of this court is the suggestion that the age at the time of trial, rather than at the time the crime was committed, should prevail. This suggestion, however, is, in our judgment, unsound from the very terms of the statute as well as upon reason. The statute defines a 'delinquent' child to be one who, of the ages specified, commits any of the acts named, including the crime charged here, and then vests in county courts of the State exclusive jurisdiction to try such 'delinquent' children. They become 'delinquent' children by the commission of the act denounced when the acts are committed, and the jurisdiction then vests exclusively in the county court, which court, having thus acquired exclusive jurisdiction, cannot be ousted by its failure to act. The very purpose of this law, as has been declared by this court upon more occasions than one, is to provide for the protection and care of juvenile offenders in a humanitarian effort to prevent them from becoming outcasts and criminals rather than to inflict punishment for their delinquencies. To hold that the officers charged with the execution of the law may defer action until the offending child has passed the age thus protected by the statute, and then prosecute *Page 439 him as a criminal, and not as a juvenile, would defeat the very purpose of the law and cannot be sanctioned.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. People v. Ross
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.