People v. Gilbert’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 106 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 113 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ ‘The sufficiency of an indictment or information is not to be tested by the rules of the common law nor by the rules which existed prior to the amendments of 1927 and 1929 of our statutes relating to the pleading in criminal eases. The true rule can be determined only by a consideration of all the statutes affecting the subject as they exist since these amendments. The purpose of an indictment or information is to inform the accused of the charge which he must meet at the trial. At common law, where this information came solely from the indictment, much particularity was required ... as a part of the accusatory procedure the law now provides that in every case the accused is entitled to a copy of the testimony given before the grand jury or the committing magistrate as the case may be (§§ 870, 925, Penal Code) and he is today better informed as to the case he must meet than was an accused under the detailed form of pleading required at common law. By section 959 of the Penal Code as amended in 1927 (Stats. 1927, p. 1041) we have the statutory provision that an information, indictment or complaint is sufficient if it can be understood therefrom that it is entitled in a court having authority to receive it; that the defendant is named, . . .; that the offense is one of which the court has jurisdiction and that the offense was committed prior to the filing of the information. The former requirements of subdivisions 6 and 7 of section 959, that the act or omission charged must ”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 184 Cal. App. 2d 317 - People v. Mason · 55 Cal. App. 2d 130 - People v. Corica

2. ““In this case the indictment neither charged two offenses, nor does it appear that the acts which were described in the first count were different from those described in the second. To do all of the things enumerated in the different subdivisions of section 182 of the Penal Code amounts to a single offense only, and it is quite plain that the district attorney might have joined in one count of his indictment all of the matters which were made the subject of the two counts. That he did choose to separate them and state with more particularity the charge iu the way which is exhibited by the indictment did not violate any of the rules of criminal pleading, or any of the specific provisions of section 954 of the Penal Code.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Cossey · 94 Cal. App. 2d 85 - People v. Nasworthy

3. “it is only when the substantive offense charged is alleged as a single entity to be the only overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy that an acquittal of the substantive offense operates as an acquittal of the conspiracy charge based solely thereon.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Guerrero