State v. McCray’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
48 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 50 later decisions — most recently April 2018 · most notably State v. Morgan (1986), State v. Ramey (1986)
48 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 Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Harris v. New York · McDougall v. North Carolina · State v. Van McDougall · State v. Harris
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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Ordinarily, when a person who is free from fault in bringing on a difficulty is attacked in his home or on his own premises, the law imposes on him no duty to retreat before he can justify his fighting in self-defense. The person is entitled to stand his ground, to repel force with force, and to increase his force to overcome the assault and to secure himself from harm.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Morgan · State v. McAvoy“In making this determination you should consider the circumstances as you find them to have existed from the evidence, including the size, the age, and the strength of the Defendant Shoemaker, as compared to that of Thomas Cass; the fierceness of the assault, if any, being made upon the Defendant; the reputation, if any, of Thomas Cass for danger and violence. The Defendant would not be guilty of any murder or manslaughter if he acted in self-defense, as I have defined it to be; and that the Defendant did not use excessive force under the circumstances. A Defendant uses excessive force if he uses more force than reasonably appeared to him to be necessary at the time of the killing. It is for you, the Jury, to determine the reasonableness of the force used by the Defendant under all the circumstances as they appeared to him at the time. (Emphasis added.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“(1) it appeared to defendant and he believed it to be necessary to kill the deceased in order to save himself from death or great bodily harm; and (2) defendant's belief was reasonable in that the circumstances as they appeared to him at the time were sufficient to create such a belief in the mind of a person of ordinary firmness; and (3) defendant was not the aggressor in bringing on the affray, i.e., he did not aggressively and willingly enter into the fight without legal excuse or provocation; and (4) defendant did not use excessive force, i.e., did not use more force than was necessary or reasonably appeared to him to be necessary under the circumstances to protect himself from death or great bodily harm.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Norman
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.