Commonwealth v. Wall’s Empirical Analysis
1936
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 34 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently January 2011 · most notably Herald Publishing Co. v. Bill (1955), State ex rel. Beck v. Fox Kansas Theatre Co. (1936)
1 federal appellate · 34 state decisions — followed in 15 states
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. Danz · Yellow-Stone Kit v. State · State v. Eames · Hull v. . Ruggles · Commonwealth v. Sullivan
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“On the other hand, a game does not cease to be a lottery because some, or even many, of the players are admitted to play free, so long as others continue to pay for their chances. [Glover v. Malloska, 238 Mich. 216 , 219, 213 N.W. 107 , 52 A.L.R. 77 ; State v. Eames (N.H.), 183 A. 590 , 592.] So here the test is not whether it was possible to win without paying for admission to the theatre. The test is whether that group who did pay for admission were paying in part for the chance of a prize. The jury could disregard all evidence introduced by the defendant favorable to him. They could take a realistic view of the situation. They were not obliged to believe that all the ingenious devices designed to legalize this particular game of chance were fully effective in practical operation. . . . "A participant outside the theatre must wait in discomfort in the hope that if his name should be drawn within he would be notified and would hear the call soon enough to crowd through toward the front of the theatre within such time as might be allowed. The object of the defendant was to fill the theatre, not the lobby or the sidewalk.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. McEwan“A participant outside the theatre must wait in discomfort in the hope that if his name should be drawn within he would be notified and would hear the call soon enough to crowd through toward the front of the theatre within such time as might be allowed. The object of the defendant was to fill the theatre, not the lobby or the sidewalk.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. McEwan“The essence of a lottery is a chance for a prize for a price”
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.