People v. Dessauer’s Empirical Analysis
1952
Citation profile
81 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 83 later decisions — most recently March 1988 · most notably 55 Cal. 2d 88 - People v. Robillard (1960), 64 Cal. 2d 766 - People v. Reeves (1966)
81 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 32 Cal. 2d 535 - People v. Mehaffey · People v. Howard · People v. Isby · People v. Thomas · People v. Stroble
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 83 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Upon the trial of the issue raised by the plea of not guilty, the defendant is conclusively presumed to have been sane at the time the offense is alleged to have been committed. . . . “A person must be presumed to intend to do that which he voluntarily and wilfully does in fact do, and must also be presumed to intend the natural, probable and usual consequences of his own acts. Therefore when one person assails another voluntarily with a dangerous weapon likely to kill, and which does in fact destroy the life of the person assailed, the presumption is that such assailant intended death or other great bodily harm. “Any such presumption as I have mentioned, however, may be overcome by contrary evidence; and any such evidence is sufficient to overcome it which creates in the minds of the jurors a reasonable doubt that the defendant’s intent was as so presumed. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the presumption must prevail. “There has been testimony concerning the mental state of the defendant at the time of the offense charged against him in the information, and you will be instructed as to the law concerning the test of insanity as a defense to a criminal charge. Before you determine whether or not the defendant was legally sane or insane at the time of the offense alleged against him in the information, however, it will be necessary that you first determine his guilt or innocence. “In determining the guilt or innocence of the defendant, you are to be governed by the”
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.