Spear v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1931
Citation profile
21 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently August 2002
21 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. Hart · Carr v. State · Rayburn v. State · Sullivan v. State · St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Co. v. Brown
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.
“*** Court instructs the jury that if you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, Percy Spear, in Crawford County, Arkansas, and within three years from the finding of this indictment, entered into a conspiracy with any other person or persons to rob the Reynolds Drug Store in the city of Van Burén, Arkansas, and that the defendant with such other person or persons with common intent to rob same did rob said Reynolds Drug Store with a common purpose and you further find from the testimony beyond a reasonable doubt that by reason of such common conduct on their part and while carrying out such common purpose and intent, an altercation arose on account of the carrying out of such common conduct in which Elmore Brown was shot and killed by either one of the persons so engaged, the defendant, Percy Spear, being present aiding and abetting in the acts and conduct aforesaid of his companion or companions, then each would be guilty of an unlawful homicide in some degree, and if the fatal injury was inflicted upon Elmore Brown with malice aforethought but without premeditation or deliberation, then the defendant would be guilty of murder in the second degree, and if the fatal injury was inflicted on Elmore Brown with malice aforethought and after premeditation and deliberation by either one of the three, then the defendant Percy Spear would be guilty of murder in the first degree, and if the fatal injury was inflicted without malice and without deliberatio”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Lisenby v. State“*** The general rule is that all who join in a common design to commit an unlawful act, the natural and probable consequence of which involves the contingency of taking life, are responsible for a homicide committed by one of them while acting in pursuance or furtherance of the common design, although the homicide might not have been in contemplation of the parties when they conspired to commit the unlawful act, and although the actual perpetrator is not identified.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Lisenby v. State
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.