McGee v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “It is true that the application was not sworn to by the prisoner, but it also shows that the prisoner was incapable of making the affidavit for himself, and such being the case, both the reason and the letter of Section 1661, Code 1942, comes into play, that statute being as follows: ‘In all cases where the oath or affirmation of the party is required, such oath or affirmation may be made by his agent or attorney, and shall be as effectual for all purposes as if made by the party.’ An application such as this is interlocutory, and we find no instance in the long history in this State of the quoted statute wherein its reasonable application to purely interlocutory steps has ever been refused in any case civil or criminal, although it has been denied, and sometimes under general language unduly restrictive, as to affidavits necessary to initiate a proceeding such as in the probate of a claim or the filing of a bill for divorce where the facts of the claim and its validity are peculiarly within the knowledge and conscience of the claimant. But there is no such case here; and if the statute were refused application in a case such as is now before us, it would mean that only sane prisoners would be allowed to obtain a change of venue, while an insane person or one otherwise incapable of making the affidavit would be denied the right, and we must deny that the Legislature ever had any such thought that such an indefensible difference should be made. In what we have said we do not d”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Snowden v. State

2. “the State and the [trial] court paid no attention to the affidavit as to the ... change of venue other than the quoted denial ... which, without proof in support of the denial, had as well not been denied at all.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Johnson v. State

3. “[n]o attention, other than the dictated denial, was paid by the prosecution or by the court to the petition or motion contained in the affidavit as regard to the change of venue.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Johnson v. State