Taylor v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““[I]n law, if the person dies by the action of the wound, and the medical and surgical action jointly, the wound must clearly be regarded sufficiently a cause of the death. And the wound need not be even the concurrent cause; much less need it be the next proximate one; for if it is the cause, of the cause, no more is required.” [Citations omitted.] . . . “If death ensues from a wound, given in malice, but not in its nature mortal, but which, being neglected or mismanaged, the party died, this will not excuse the prisoner who gave it; but he will be held guilty of the murder, unless he can make it clearly and certainly appear that the maltreatment of the wound, or the medicine administered to the patient, or his own misconduct, and not the wound itself, was the sole cause of his death; for if the wound had not been given, the party had not died.” The evidence was sufficient to take to the jury the question of the cause of death, and, as we have seen, it was not necessary that the wounds should be the “proximate” or “exclusive” cause, but only if they were the cause of the cause, either the mediate or the immediate cause of death.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Courtney v. State