Sigmon v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1958
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 45 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 55 later decisions — most recently January 2011 · most notably State of Florida Ex Rel. Robert L. Shevin, Attorney General, Plaintiff v. Exxon Corporation (1976), Jones v. Cunningham (1963)
6 federal appellate · 45 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 Edwin Hale v. William Henkel · Tennessee v. Davis · Burford v. Commonwealth · Hundley v. Commonwealth · Reaves 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 55 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“amounts to such a defense in purpose and desired effect.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“shall be a bar to a prosecution or proceeding”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is claimed for the accused that this statute creates an absolute bar, which may be invoked by persons prosecuted in the State courts at any time before conviction, without any reference to the time when either prosecution was commenced. ... A construction which would thus enervate, impede and paralyze the administration of the criminal laws of the State should not be adopted unless the legislative intent to produce such a result is clearly indicated. Bearing in mind that the general rule has always been that where courts have concurrent jurisdiction, the court which first takes jurisdiction always has priority and the right to conclude the specific litigation, we assume that the legislature did not intend by the ambiguous language used to change this general and salutary rule. We, indeed, have no doubt, in view of these considerations, that the legislature only intended by the amendment to provide that if, when a prosecution under a State law was commenced, the accused could show that before that time there had been a prosecution or proceeding against him under a Federal statute for the same act, then that the prosecution in the State court should be barred, thus requiring as a matter of law what had theretofore rested within the discretion of the courts as a rule of comity. Thus construed, the statute imposes no undue restraint upon prosecutions either under the Federal or the State law, and at the same time effectuates the true legislative purpose sufficiently manifested”
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.