State v. Boss’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The word abuse and similarly broad terms in like statutes have been held to pass constitutional muster under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States only if they are construed so as to apply the statute to punish only what have been called “fighting words.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Wade · State v. Groves

2. “There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words— those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”

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

3. “We specifically reject the authority of Williams v. District of Columbia, 419 F.2d 638 , and the concurrence of Mr. Justice Powell in Lewis v. City of New Orleans, supra, wherein it is suggested that the words here used cannot be fighting words when directed to a police officer because he is trained to accept such abuse without violent reaction.”

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