Graybeal v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 28 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 52 later decisions — most recently April 2017 · most notably Bass v. Commonwealth (2000), Harward v. Commonwealth (1985)
8 federal appellate · 28 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 Turner v. Commonwealth · Martin 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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Code § 18.2-91 provides, inter alia: If any person [commits] any of the acts mentioned in Code § 18.2-90 with intent to commit larceny ... he shall be guilty of statutory burglary____ Code § 18.2-90 provides, in pertinent part: If any person ... in the nighttime enters without breaking or at any time breaks and enters ... any office, shop, storehouse, warehouse, banking house, or other house ..., he shall be deemed guilty of statutory burglary----”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The Commonwealth argues that even if the convictions cannot be upheld on the basis of breaking and entering twelve trailers, they can be upheld because the structures fall under the category “other house” that is set forth in Code § 18.2-90. We find no merit in this argument. The phrase “other house” is a general phrase placed at the end of a list of specific references to various structures [i.e., any office, shop, manufactured home, storehouse, warehouse, banking house, church ... ]. Those specific structures share the common element of being improvements affixed to the ground, that is, they are realty. Under the doctrine ejusdem generis, the general phrase “other house” must look for its meaning to the specific items which precede it. See Martin v. Commonwealth, 224 Va. 298 , 295 S.E.2d 890 (1982). The structures into which Graybeal entered were not realty. Thus, they do not fall within the scope of “other house.” In our opinion, it would violate sound principles of statutory construction and strain the clear intendment of the statute to hold that a trailer not used as a dwelling nevertheless falls under the definition of “other house.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he primary objective of statutory construction is to ascertain and give effect to legislative intent. A related principle is that the plain, obvious and rational meaning of a statute is always to be preferred to any curious, narrow or strained construction. Finally, because the statute in question is penal in nature, it must be strictly construed against the state and limited in application to cases falling clearly within the language of the statute.”
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.