State v. Pearson’s Empirical Analysis
1975
Citation profile
52 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 52 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably State v. Watson (1994), State v. Walden (1997)
52 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 State v. Deck · State v. Jennings · State v. Watkins · State v. Winford · State v. Anderson
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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]f a person is attacked in his own dwelling, home, place of business, or on his own premises, and is also free from fault in bringing on the difficulty, he is under no duty to retreat, whether the assailant is employing deadly force or nondeadly force. Of course, in order to justify the use of deadly force under these circumstances the person attacked must believe it to be necessary and must have a reasonable ground for such belief. On the other hand, where the person attacked is not in his own dwelling, home, place of business, or on his own premises, then the degree of force he may employ in self-defense is conditioned by the type of force used by his assailant. If the assailant uses nondeadly force, then generally deadly force cannot be used by the person attacked; provided there is no great disparity in strength, size, numbers, etc., between the person attacked and his assailant. However, if the assailant uses deadly force, then the person attacked may stand his ground and kill his attacker if he believes it to be necessary and he has a reasonable ground for such belief.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““The right to act in self-defense is based upon necessity, real or apparent, and a person may use such force as is necessary or apparently necessary to save himself from death or great bodily harm in the lawful exercise of his right of self-defense. A person may kill even though it be not necessary to kill to avoid death or great bodily harm if he believes it to be necessary and he has reasonable grounds for such belief. The reasonableness of his belief is to be determined by the jury from the facts and circumstances as they appeared to the accused at the time of the killing. State v. Gladden, 279 N.C. 566 , 184 S.E. 2d 249 ; State v. Jennings, 276 N.C. 157 , 171 S.E. 2d 447 ; State v. Kirby, 273 N.C. 306 , 160 S.E. 2d 24 .””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“when a person ... is attacked in his own home or on his own premises , the law imposes on him no duty to retreat before he can justify his fighting in self defense [sic], regardless of the character of the assault, but is entitled to stand his ground, to repel force with force, and to increase his force, so as not only to resist, but also to overcome the assault and secure himself from all harm.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.