Valentine v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1948
Citation profile
21 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently September 2018
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 McDermott v. State · Runyan v. State · Mundy v. Commonwealth · Dodson v. Commonwealth · Jackson 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[o]rdinarily the law of self-defense is not applicable in a case of a killing resulting from an act which was accidental and unintentional, particularly where the facts of the case are not such as would make such law applicable. However, where the defense of excusable homicide by misadventure is relied on, the principles of self-defense may be involved, not for the purpose of establishing defense of self, but for the purpose of determining whether accused was or was not at the time engaged in a lawful act; and it has been held that in such case the right, but not the law, of self-defense is invoked. Accused is entitled to an acquittal where he was lawfully acting in self-defense and the death of his assailant resulted from accident or misadventure, as where in falling he struck or overturned an object and thereby received injuries resulting in his death, or where in a struggle over the possession of a weapon it was accidentally discharged.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In all cases where the killing of the assailant is purposely done by the assaulted party, he must have acted under the belief that such killing was necessary to preserve his own life, or to save himself from great bodily harm, to render the killing excusable. We do not mean to say, however, that to render the killing excusable the assaulted party must have acted under the belief that the death of the assailant was necessary. As we have said, in proper cases the assaulted party has the right to meet force with force; and if, in a proper defence, death results to the assailant, the killing may be excusable without a belief on the part of the assaulted party that it was necessary for his own safety. In such cases the defence is purposely made, but the killing is not purposely done. It is simply the result of the defence. Runyan v. State, 57 Ind. 80 (26 Am. R. 52); Whart. Crim. Law, sec. 1019; Hor. & Thomp. Cases on Self-Defence, 492.” (Emphasis added).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“In other words, when a man kills another in an honest error of fact, murder is out of the question. The only issue is was this error negligent or non-negligent? If negligent, the killing is manslaughter. If non-negligent, excusable homicide. 187 Va. at 953 , 48 S.E.2d at 268 .”
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.