State v. Wilkerson’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 384 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 401 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably State v. Ahearn (1983), Hajmm Co. v. House of Raeford Farms, Inc. (1991)
10 federal appellate · 384 state decisions — followed in 17 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 Beal v. Franklin · State v. Vestal · State v. Benton · State v. Foust · Fowler v. North Carolina
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 401 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'the opinion expressed is ... really one based on the special expertise of the expert, that is, ... the witness because of his expertise is in a better position to have an opinion on the subject than is the trier of fact[.]'”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage“[A]ny act evidencing “wickedness of disposition, hardness of heart, cruelty, recklessness of consequences, and a mind regardless of social duty and deliberately bent on mischief, though there may be no intention to injure a particular person” is sufficient to supply the malice necessary for second degree murder. ... An act that indicates a total disregard for human life is sufficient to supply the malice necessary to support the crime of second degree murder.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[I]t comprehends not only particular animosity `but also wickedness of disposition, hardness of heart, cruelty, recklessness of consequences and a mind regardless of social duty and deliberately bent on mischief, thought there may be no intention to injure a particular person.' This Court has said that `[m]alice does not necessarily mean an actual intent to take human life; it may be inferential or implied, instead of positive, as when an act which imports danger to anther is done so recklessly or wantonly as to manifest depravity of mind and disregard of human life.' In such a situation `the law regards the circumstances of the act as so harmful that the law punishes the act as though malice did in fact exist.”
8 later decisions 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.