State v. Ruckman’s Empirical Analysis
1913
Citation profile
39 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 39 later decisions — most recently August 1976 · most notably State v. Stapleton (1975), State v. Bayless (1951)
39 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 State v. Steinkraus · State v. Morney
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 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Evidence of motive is admissible, as furnishing one link in the chain of circumstances, tending to establish guilt, but mere showing of motive, uncorroborated by other facts and circumstances inconsistent with innocence, is not sufficient prima-facie showing to authorize the submission of defendant's guilt to the jury. It would be a rather unjust and dangerous rule that held that the mere showing of motive and opportunity would overcome the presumption of defendant's innocence and establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, his participation in the criminal act. Aside from the showing of a possible motive, there is no other fact or circumstance which, in any way, points towards defendant's guilt.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Singleton“Where a chain of circumstances leads up to and establishes a state of facts inconsistent with any theory other than the guilt of the accused, such evidence is entitled to as much weight as any other kind of evidence, but the chain, as it were, must be unbroken, and the facts and circumstances disclosed and relied upon must be irreconcilable with the innocence of the accused in order to justify his conviction .”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. McMurphy“All the facts and circumstances shown by the state's evidence could exist and yet the defendant be innocent of any crime. The evidence as a whole leaves too much room for doubt and mistake and does not possess sufficient proof of guilt to authorize the state to deprive defendant of his liberty.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Stapleton
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.