Rives v. Com.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

23 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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The word “obscene” where it appears in this article shall mean that which, considered as a whole, has as its dominant theme or purpose an appeal to the prurient interest in sex, that is, a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, excretory functions or products thereof or sadomasochistic abuse, and which goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters and which, taken as a whole, does not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. 3”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 61 Va. App. 471 - Richard Turner Moter v. Commonwealth of Virginia

2. ““presume[s] that the legislature chose, with care, the words it use[d]” when it enacts a statute and that “when the General Assembly has used specific language in one instance, but omits that language or uses different language when addressing a similar subject elsewhere, it must be presumed that the difference in the choice of language was intentional.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth of Virginia v. Charles Lordell Jefferson, Jr.