St. Clair v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1939
Citation profile
6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently October 1970
6 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 Nicholas v. Commonwealth · Cochran 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““. . . However, this testimony alone, or viewed with the other circumstances disclosed, is not sufficient to ‘produce the full assurance of moral certainty’ that whiskey was illegally dispensed or used on the premises. . . . Until that fact is established no premises can be declared, under the act, to be a common nuisance. In other words, the corpus delicti is an essential fact to be established either by direct evidence, or by circumstantial evidence ‘so strong and intense as to produce the full assurance of moral certainty’ that a crime has been committed.” 174 Va. 480, 484 , 5 S. E. 2d 512, 514 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““. . . [I]t is necessary for the Commonwealth to establish two separate and distinct facts: First, that alcoholic beverages were habitually used upon the premises contrary to law, and, second, that the defendant maintained, aided, abetted, or knowingly was associated with another in such unlawful use.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““All houses, . . . where alcoholic beverages are manufactured, stored, sold, dispensed, given away or used contrary to law, by any scheme or device whatever, shall be deemed common nuisances ...””
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.