Hill v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1931
Citation profile
2 district · 13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently January 1988
2 district · 13 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 Maulding v. Commonwealth · Lewis v. Commonwealth · Terrell v. Commonwealth · 85 Tex. Crim. 165 - Banks v. State · Smiley 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"The most that can be said is that he intentionally fired into the car knowing that it was occupied by human beings. It has long been the law that if one voluntarily and recklessly fires into a crowd and kills any person, he is guilty of murder though he had no intention to kill or injure any one. . . . The reason for the rule is that such conduct establishes 'general malignity and recklessness of the lives and personal safety of others, which proceed from a heart void of just sense or social duty, and fatally bent on mischief. And whenever the fatal act is committed deliberately or without adequate provocation,' the jury has a right to presume it was done with malice. The rule has been applied where one having reason to believe that it was occupied by persons intentionally discharged a firearm into a dwelling house and killed some one therein. Washington v. State , 60 Ala. 10 , 31 Am.Rep. 28, 3 Am.Crim. Rep. 171; State v. Capps , 134 N.C. 622 , 46 S.E. 730 ; Russell v. State , 38 Tex.Crim. R., 44 S.W. 159 . It has also been held that one who deliberately shoots into a railroad train, occupied by passengers, cannot avoid liability for the resulting homicide by disclaiming malice, but is guilty of murder. Banks v. State , 85 Tex.Crim. R., 211 S.W. 217 , 5 A.L.R. 600 . As an automobile offers less protection *Page 407 than a railroad coach, there is every reason why the same rule should apply where one intentionally fires into an automobile, which he knows to be occupied by hum”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“In a reckless manner and without lawful excuse and without regard for human life.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.