Murphy v. People of the State of California’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

32 federal appellate · 24 district · 142 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 268 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Playing at billiards is a lawful amusement; and keeping a billiard hall is not, as held by the supreme court of California on plaintiff’s application for habeas corpus, a nuisance per se. But it may become such; and the regulation or prohibition need not be postponed until the evil has become flagrant. That the keeping of a billiard hall has a harmful tendency is a fact requiring no proof, and' incapable of being controverted by the testimony of the plaintiff that his business was lawfully conducted, free from gaming or anything which could affect the morality of the community or of his patrons. The fact that there had been no disorder or open violation of the law does not prevent the municipal authorities from taking legislative notice of the idleness and other evils which result from the maintenance of a resort where it is the business of one to stimulate others to play beyond what is proper for legitimate recreation. The ordinance is not aimed at the game, but at the place; and where, in the exercise of the police power, the municipal authorities determine that the keeping of such resorts should be prohibited, the courts cannot go behind their finding and inquire into local conditions; or whether the defendant’s hall was an orderly establishment, or had been conducted in such manner as to produce the evils sought to be prevented by the ordinance.” See, also, Booth v. Illinois, 184 U. S. 425 , 429, 22 S. Ct. 425 , 46 L. Ed. 623 .”

   8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wiseman v. Tanner · Gonzalez v. Porto Rico

2. ““Where, in the exercise of the police power, the municipal authorities determine that the keeping of such resorts, should be prohibited, the courts cannot go behind their finding and inquire into local conditions.” “A calling may not in itself he immoral, and yet the tendency of what is generally or ordinarily or often done in ¿pursuing that calling- may he towards that which is admittedly immoral or pernicious. If, looking at all the circumstances that attend, or which may ordinarily attend, the pursuit of a particular calling, the state thinks that certain admitted evils cannot be successfully reached unless that calling be actually prohibited, the courts cannot interfere) unless, looking through mere forms and at the substance of the matter, they can say that the statute enacted professedly to protect the public morals has no real or substantial relation to that object, but is a clear, unmistakable infringement of rights secured by the fundamental law.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Anton v. Van Winkle