Pinson v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “.“This is not a criminal prosecution, but a common suit upon a bond for money, an action to enforce a civil contract between these sureties and the state. And we know of no rule requiring any greater strictness in construing this law than any other legislative act upon civil contracts, and instead of adhering to the utmost strictness, as in prosecutions for high crimes, we must give the law a fair and liberal construction to carry out the provisions of the statute and enforce the contract in the spirit of the law, and as it was understood between the parties, and such construction is clearly what was intended by the legislature, as shown by section 80 of the criminal code, in which it is enacted that no ‘irregularity, so that it be made to appear that the defendant was legally in custody charged with a public offense, and that he was discharged therefrom by reason of the giving of the bond or recognizance, and that it can be ascertained from the bond or recognizance that the bail undertook that the defendant should appear before a magistrate for the trial thereof, etc., shall render the bail-bond or recognizance invalid.’ ” (Pinson et al. v. The State, 28 Ark. 397, 400 .)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. McKie v. State