State v. Williamson’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
48 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 48 later decisions — most recently August 2022 · most notably Lewis v. State (1979), Evans v. State (1985)
48 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 Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Dobbert v. Florida · State v. Rush · Watson v. State
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 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Statutes similar in character to that now under consideration have been enacted in many of the American states as well as in England, in an effort to escape the excessive formalism of the common law, which formerly made the' conviction or acquittal of one charged with crime so often turn upon some technical quibble rather than upon the guilt or innocence of the accused, and the uniform tendency of the courts has been to uphold them wherever that could be done without infringing the right of the accused to the protection of such constitutional guarantees, as the right to be informed of the charge against him.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[pjresence (or absence) at the scene of the crime thus appears to be the key factor which at common law distinguished an accessory before the fact from a principal in the second degree. This presence could be constructive, as noted by Blackstone. Perkins states at 660, “A person is regarded as constructively present, within the rules relating to parties in criminal cases, whenever he is cooperating with the perpetrator and ‘is so situated as to be able to aid him, with a view known to the other, to insure success in the accomplishment of the common purpose^]’ ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“In any indictment for murder or manslaughter, or for being an accessory thereto, it shall not be necessary to set forth the manner or means of death. It shall be sufficient to use a formula substantially to the following effect: That A.B., on the ..... day of ..... nineteen hundred and ....., at the county aforesaid, feloniously (wilfully and of deliberately premeditated malice aforethought) did kill (and murder) C.D. against the peace, government and dignity of the State.”
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.