Glessner's Case’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Under the common law it is the rule that the tenure of ministerial officers in general is during the pleasure of the appointing power, unless the law clearly provides otherwise. ‘An officer is not appointed for his own sake, but for that of the public. If he misbehaves, the sooner he is removed the better, because the country suffers every moment that he continues in office. . . . Never was it supposed, in Pennsylvania, either before or since the revolution, that it was proper for ministerial officers to hold by any stronger tenure than the pleasure of the persons through whom they received their appointment' except in special cases where by law it was provided otherwise. This long continued custom is powerful evidence of the law; particularly in the United States, where every freeman stands on the same proud footing, where offices are sought with avidity, and where there is neither inclination to submit to executive oppression, nor danger in resisting it’: Com. v. Bussier, 5 S. & R. 451, 461.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Randall