State v. King’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The next question is whether the service of the writ upon the defendants was valid or not. This question must be answered in the negative. The statute contemplates that the writ shall be served by delivering the writ itself to the defendant to the court. No mere copy of the writ' is sufficient in either case. This was also the rule at common law., Section 690 of the Civil Code [Gen. St. 1868, c. 80] provides that the writ shall command the defendant ‘that, immediately upon receipt of the writ, or at some other specified time/ he shall obey its mandates, ‘and that he then shall return the writ with this certificate of having done as he is commanded.’ Of course, the defendant could not be in ‘receipt of the writ’ unless it was delivered to him; nor could he ‘return the writ’ unless he had previously received the same. He could not ‘return the writ’ if he had never received anything but a mere copy of the same. Section 693 of the Civil Code -provides that ‘the writ must be served personally upori the defendant; if the defendant, duly served, neglect to return the same, he shall be proceeded against as for a contempt.’ Now the defendant could not ‘return the writ’ if he had never seen the same nor had it in his possesion. He could not ‘return the same’ if he had never had anything but a mere copy of ‘the same’ in his possession. And while the section provides that the defendant may be proceeded against as for a contempt if he neglect on his part to return the original writ, yet ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ellis v. Outler