37 Ala. App. 311 - Spain v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1953
Citation profile
47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 49 later decisions — most recently July 1986 · most notably State v. Doyle (1968), 50 Ala. App. 176 - Thigpen v. State (1973)
47 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 Phillips v. State · Rowe v. State · Denson v. Realty Mortgage Co. · Watts v. State · Shelton v. State
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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"In a murder prosecution, proof of the corpus -delicti includes proof of the victim’s death and proof that death was caused by some person’s criminal agency. Moss v. State, 32 Ala.App. 250 , 25 So.2d 700 , certiorari denied 247 Ala. 595 , 25 So.2d 703 ; Shelton v. State, 217 Ala. 465 , 117 So. 8 ; Ducett v. State, 186 Ala. 34 , 65 So. 351 ; Pearce v. State, 14 Ala.App, 120, 72 So. 213 . It is not required that the corpus delicti be proved by direct evidence; it may be proved by circumstantial evidence as well. Phillips v. State, 248 Ala. 510 , 28 So.2d 542 ; Rowe v. State, 243 Ala. 618 , 11 So.2d 749 ; McDowell v. State, 238 Ala. 101 , 189 So. 183 ; Inman v. State, 23 Ala.App. 484 , 127 So. 262 . The requirement that, in a murder prosecution, the State must show not only the fact of the victim’s death, but also that death was caused by the criminal agency of another, is satisfied when it appears that death was not the result of accident or natural causes, or of suicide. Shelton v. State, supra.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage““When evidence of a former difficulty between a defendant and the assaulted party is offered by the State, it is for the purpose of shedding light on the true conduct of the defendant at the time of the subsequent difficulty for which the accused is on trial. Gray v. State, 63 Ala. 66 ; McAnally v. State, 74 Ala. 9 .”
4 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Barton v. State · Miller v. State
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.