State v. Wright’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Most of the cases holding the proceedings civil in nature are based upon the theory that the Court in determining the nature of the action looks not so much to the form of procedure, but to the end to be attained. These Courts consider that the purposes of the statute are not so much to punish the man for begetting a bastard as to impose upon him the obligation to care for the infant and to protect the public from the cost of maintenance. There is much merit in these conclusions, and the difficulty lies in attempting to formalize or standardize certain purely statutory proceedings which refuse to be classified in any known and fixed groups. * * * * * * The primary object of the statute as I view it, is that the maintenance of the child should be borne by him who was responsible for its existence, and the State furnishes the machinery in its own name to compel such maintenance. The proceeding is not based on contract and does not sound in tort. It is a police regulation of a statutory character, for the enforcement of which the State extends its criminal process. Largely because a conviction is not followed by a fine in presentí or by imprisonment but by an order requiring the defendant to pay an amount from Fifteen to Forty Dollars a month until the child is sixteen, the Courts have hesitated to call it a strictly criminal proceeding and have termed it ‘quasi criminal’, viz., that it is not identical with criminal proceedings but is sufficiently similar thereto to be classed”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cahill v. State

2. ““* * * The whole proceeding is of statutory origin — it had no existence at the common law, and the first statute in Delaware relating to the subject matter was passed in 1796. Being created by statute it is entirely regulated by that statute and if no right of appeal is there given such right is non-existent. The statute shows the only right of appeal in favor of ‘any person, against whom an order of filiation shall be made.’ Rev. Code 1935, § 3566. That of course is not the State.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Sax