Frierson v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 state decisions

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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In the enactment of these statutes, 1152, 1153, 1154, and 1155, supra, the Legislature was dealing with a crime of rape, and the acts denounced in section 1155, supra, are but declaratory of the common law upon that subject, when applied to the act of unlawful carnal knowledge of a female who is beneath the age of consent or an idiot. Section 1152, supra, which imposes a punishment of death or imprisonment for life for the crime of rape upon the body of an infant under the age of 12 years, which was at the time the statute was enacted the age at which a female could consent to unlawful sexual intercourse, does not undertake to define the crime of rape, but leaves its definition to the common law, and was evidently intended to provide a penalty commensurate with the crime for the commission of rape upon infants under 12 years of age, when accomplished by violence, force, threats, putting in fear, and without the consent of the infant and against her will, or whilst the infant is insensible; while section 1155, supra, was designed for application to those rapes upon idiots and infants whom the law esteems incapable of consenting to unlawful sexual intercourse, and when accomplished without actual force, violence, or threats, and with the nominal consent or acquiescence of the idiot or infant. * * * The indictment in the instant case charges that character of rape which at the common law was accomplished by the nominal consent of the female and without violence or actual force ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hodge v. Commonwealth

2. ““Whoever shall unlawfully carnally know a female under the age of sixteen years, or an idiot, shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than ten nor more than twenty years. ’ ’”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hodge v. Commonwealth

3. ““It would be idle in such an indictment to charge that the offense was committed forcibly and without the consent of the infant, as both averments would be only surplusage.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Kitchen v. Commonwealth