State v. Norman’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
48 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 53 later decisions — most recently May 2021 · most notably State v. Thomas (1997), State v. McAvoy (1992)
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 McKnight v. Commonwealth · State v. Bush · State v. Mash · State v. Norris · State v. Dooley
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 53 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“ha[s] sometimes used the phrase 'about to suffer' interchangeably with 'imminent' to describe the immediacy of the threat that is required to justify killing in self-defense.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“The law of perfect self-defense excuses a killing altogether if, at the time of the killing, these four elements existed: (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 passage · from the dissent“The elements of perfect defense of another are essentially the same as those for perfect self-defense. In general one may kill in defense of another if one believes it to be necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm to the other and has a reasonable ground for such belief, the reasonableness of this belief or apprehension to be judged by the jury in fight of the facts and circumstances as they appeared to the defender at the time of the killing. The right to kill in defense of another cannot exceed such other’s right to kill in his own defense as that other’s right reasonably appeared to the defendant.”
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.