State v. Dickinson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

61 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 64 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[W]here two statutes do not expressly state that the word has the same meaning in both, it is apparent that it might have different meanings.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Porter · State v. Hurst

2. “The common law status of an unborn child is best described by the oft-quoted statement of Coke in the mid-17th century: “If a woman be quick with chüde, and by a potion or otherwise kfileth it in her wombe, or if a man beat her, whereby the childe dyeth in her body, and she is delivered of a dead chüde, this is great misprision, and no murder; but if the childe be bom alive and dyeth of the potion, battery, or other cause, this is murder; for in law it is accounted a reasonable creature, in rerum natura, when it is born alive.” 3 Coke, Institutes 58 [1648].”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 3 Ill. App. 3d 422 - Chrisafogeorgis v. Brandenberg

3. “Dickinson at 70 . However, when the Dickinson citation is considered in context, it is clear that Dickinson does not support the proposition advanced by Blankenship, Tabor, and the Fillinger dissent. The entire Dickinson quote is as follows: It must be noted, however, that the definition of a word in a civil statute does not necessarily import the same meaning to the same word in interpreting a criminal statute. The result may be 5. The majority characterizes our criticism of Nagel, Napier, Blankenship, and Tabor as authority supporting their position as”

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