Ward v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The jury was instructed to find appellants guilty if they ‘willfully, unlawfully and feloniously’ received the two shotguns knowing they had been stolen. The word ‘feloniously’, was defined as proceeding from an evil heart or purpose, and this definition provided the only avenue through which the jury could have found appellants not guilty on the basis of their story that Ward had purchased the guns with the intention of communicating with the sheriff before disposing of them. This, in our opinion, was not clear enough to constitute a fair presentation of the appellants’ theory of defense. Evitts v. Commonwealth, supra. Upon another trial a specific instruction should be given, and the definition of ‘feloniously’ should be amplified to include the additional words, ‘done with deliberate intention of committing a crime.’ Cf. McVey v. Commonwealth, Ky., 272 S.W.2d 33, 35 (1954).””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Kohler v. Commonwealth