Anderson v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Appellant having used no such physical-force towards or against " the deceased officer as would justify the latter in shooting him, either in the exercise of his right of self-defense, or the right to overcome and stop the flight by appellant, the instructions given by the court to the jury should have only submitted the right of deceased to arrest appellant if he had committed any offense in the presence of deceased, for which there was testimony to support, and that deceased had the right, if defendant escaped by flight, or hindered his arrest by such means, to pursue him for the purpose of arresting or recapturing him, but that he had no right to shoot at. or otherwise imperil the life or limb of appellant, and that, if he did so, the latter had the right to defend himself in the exercise of his ordinary right of self-defense, to be given by an independent and separate instruction. ' ‘ ‘ There also should have been given a proper instruction on manslaughter, as well as murder, and the reasonable doubt instruction, which would be all the instructions that would be authorized under the facts as now presented by the record, and would therefore constitute the whole law of the case.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Anderson v. Commonwealth

2. ““The statute should be given a liberal construction, and the word being considered should not be given a narrow or contracted meaning so as to confine its application to strictly physical force, but it should be defined so as to include all actions and conduct of the prisoner which are directed against or in opposition to any character of resistance which the officer may lawfully exercise in an effort to prevent the escape. This would include fleeing of the prisoner from the officer over the latter’s protest and in defiance of his commands, although no physical force other than that which might be used while fleeing from the officer was exercised by the prisoner.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hopkins v. Commonwealth