Smoker v. Ohl’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We find in Pennsylvania no case which holds that a judgment of guilty, by a court having jurisdiction of the offense and the person of the defendant, unreversed and unappealed from, is not conclusive evidence of probable cause for the prosecution, where there is no evidence whatever that the conviction was procured by false or fraudulent testimony or other unlawful means. We have in this case a conviction from which a presumption, at least, arose that there was probable cause for the arrest, and the plaintiff made no attempt to rebut that presumption by proof that the conviction was obtained by false or fraudulent testimony or other unlawful means; it follows, therefore, that the court below was right in instructing the jury that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover damages for his arrest and detention.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 752 F. Supp. 2d 643 - Basile v. Township of Smith