State v. Wilds’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

24 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Assault and battery with intent to kill has 4 elements. It's an unlawful act of violent injury to the person of another accompanied with malice aforethought .... Malice is an essential element of assault and battery with intent to kill. The malice must be aforethought. Thought of just before and at the time the blow was struck .... So what do we mean by malice? Malice imports wickedness, and it excludes any just cause or legal excuse. Malice springs from depravity, from a depraved spirit, from a heart devoid of social duty and fatally bent on mischief. It does not necessarily import ill will towards the specific person who is injured, but rather it signifies a general malignancy towards and recklessness for the life and safety of another or a condition of the mind that shows a heart devoid of social duty and fatally bent on mischief. There has to be a combination between this evil intent existing aforethought, just before and at the commission of the battery, and the act producing the battery .... Now obviously, folks, malice is a state of mind. The State has to prove to you that the element of malice existed by either direct evidence or circumstantial evidence or a combination of both.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Kinard