Weston v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1975
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 36 later decisions — most recently January 2003 · most notably Mangual v. Rotger-Sabat (2003), Gottschalk v. State (1978)
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 24 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 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Garrison v. State of Louisiana · Saulsbury v. Bethlehem Steel Co. · State Board of Chiropractic Examiners v. Life Fellowship · Commonwealth v. ARMAO
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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In all criminal prosecutions for libel the truth may be given in evidence to the jury; and if it shall appear to the jury that the matter charged as libelous is true, and was published with good motives, and for justifiable ends, the party shall be acquitted; and the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the fact.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. I.M.L. v. State · IML v. State“The Commonwealth urges us to in effect re-draft the criminal libel statutes in accordance with First Amendment requirements. To accede to this request would be to undertake a wholly inappropriate judicial activity amounting to judicial legislation.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Gottschalk v. State“[t]he statutory language makes no provision for truth being an absolute defense. Likewise, no recognition is given the reckless disregard and knowing falsity standard mandated by New York Times and Garrison.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. IML v. State
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.