State v. Harrington’s Empirical Analysis
1963
Citation profile
20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently May 2017
20 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. Faust · State v. . Cope · State v. Phelps · Adams Ex Rel. Adams v. State Board of Education · State v. Becker
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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Contributory negligence is no defense in a criminal action. However, in a case in which defendant is charged with manslaughter by reason of his alleged culpable negligence, the negligence of the person fatally injured, or of a third person, is relevant and material on the question of proximate cause. ... It is true that the deceased boys were only 7 and 10 years of age. As a matter of law, a child under 7 years of age is incapable of negligence. An infant between the ages of 7 and 14 is presumed incapable of negligence, but the presumption is rebuttable. . . . These are rules of law by which it is determined in civil cases whether the suit by an infant for negligent injury is barred by his contributory negligence. In a criminal action based on culpable negligence the presumption of incapability of negligence by an infant between the ages of 7 and 14 does not shift the burden of proof to, or cast any burden upon, defendant. The inquiry is whether the culpable conduct, if any, of defendant was a proximate cause of the death. If under all the circumstances the conduct of the infant was such as to create in the minds of the jury a reasonable doubt that the acts of defendant constituted a proximate cause of death, defendant should be acquitted. The defendant is entitled to have the jury consider, on the question of proximate cause, whether the conduct of the driver of the vehicle he attempted to pass, or the conduct of the infants in violating G.S. 20474(d), or both together, was ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Contributory negligence is no defense in a criminal action. However, in a case in which defendant is charged with manslaughter by reason of his alleged culpable negligence, the negligence of a person fatally injured, or of a third per son, is relevant and material on the question of proximate cause. . . .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“As a matter of law, a child under 7 years of age is incapable of negligence.”
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.