Bell County v. Minton’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The language of the statute contemplates that the fee should be taxed, not only against the defendant, but paid by him in cash or by confinement in jail at hard labor. When taxed as provided by this section of the statute, if the convicted defendant fails to so pay it in the manner and form in which the fine by law is required to be satisfied, in that event it becomes the duty of the fiscal court to pay it to the arresting officer out of the county funds. The taxing of the fee and the so collecting of it of the convicted defendant are made by the statute conditions precedent to the liability of the county for its payment to the arresting officer. A convicted defendant is primarily liable to the arresting officer for the payment of the fee, and the county is only contingently liable, i. e., [a] if it be taxed as costs, and [b] not paid by the convicted defendant. Without the $5 arresting fee having been so taxed and thereby becoming a part of the punishment against the convicted defendant, such defendant is not liable to the arresting officer for it. At most, the officer has nothing more than an open account against the defendant for the arresting fee.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Taylor for Use Benefit Laurel Cty. v. Scoville