Thomas v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
62 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 62 later decisions — most recently May 2015 · most notably 53 Cal. 3d 753 - Mercer v. Department of Motor Vehicles (1991), Mazor v. State, Dep't of Correction (1977)
62 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 Baker v. State · Gaddis v. State · State v. Webb · Thomas v. Police Commissioner · A. H. Smith Sand & Gravel Co. v. Department of Water Resources
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 62 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"When the day arrives, however, when a person may be convicted on the basis of suspicion alone, liberty will have vanished from the land. Under our system of justice it was incumbent upon the State to prove the elements of the crime."”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ ‘[t]he term ‘driving’ is generally used to mean, in this connection, steering and controlling a vehicle while in motion; the term ‘operating,’ on the other hand, is generally given a broader meaning to include starting the engine or manipulating the mechanical or electrical devices of a standing vehicle.’ ””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““We have said many times that a hornbook rule of statutory construction is that in ascertaining the intention of the Legislature all parts of a statute are to be read together to find the intention as to any one part and that all parts are to be reconciled and harmonized if possible and that a corollary to that rule is that if there is no clear indication to the contrary and it is reasonably possible, a statute is to be read so that no word, clause, sentence or phrase shall be rendered surplusage, superfluous, meaningless, or nugatory.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.