McWhorter v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1951
Citation profile
32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 36 later decisions — most recently November 2007 · most notably 1 Va. App. 241 - Sutphin v. Commonwealth (1985), Satcher v. Commonwealth (1992)
32 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 Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire · Terminiello v. Chicago · American Federation of Labor v. Swing · Cafeteria Employees Union, Local 302 v. Angelos
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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[E]vidence of similar acts is admissible to show a common scheme, design, or plan where there is `such a concurrence of common features that the various acts are naturally to be explained as caused by a general plan of which they are the individual manifestations.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““§ 40-64. Preventing persons from pursuing lawful vocations, etc.; illegal picketing; injunction. — No person shall singly or in concert with others interfere or attempt to interfere with another in the exercise of his right to work or to enter upon the performance of any lawful vocation by the use of force, threats of violence or intimidation, or by the use of insulting or threatening language directed toward such person, to induce or attempt to induce him to quit his employment or refrain from seeking employment. “No person shall engage in picketing by force or violence, or picket alone or in concert with others in such manner as to obstruct or interfere with free ingress or egress to and from any premises, or obstruct or interfere with free use of public streets, sidewalks or other public ways. * # # # # “Any person violating any of the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and punished accordingly.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[The statute] does not prohibit “peaceful picketing or peaceful persuasion... . ” The section is not aimed at the use of “insulting” words or language as such. It does not prohibit or punish the use of offensive words by one picket toward another picket, or toward one not connected with the particular industrial plant concerned. . .. Nor does it, as the defendant argues, confine those on the picket line to language suitable only to the “drawing room” or the “parlor car.” Its prohibition is within a narrow scope. ... Its plain purpose is to protect the inherent right to work from the “clear and present danger” of destruction by those who . .. would prevent exercise of that right.”
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.