State v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1967
Citation profile
45 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 46 later decisions — most recently May 2009 · most notably State v. Taylor (1984), State v. Whitfield (1992)
45 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 Graham v. John Deere Company of Kansas City Calmar Inc · Malloy v. Hogan · Roth v. United States · Yick Wo v. Hopkins · Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts
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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In the exercise of his discretion a prosecuting attorney has the right to choose a course of, action or nonaction, as long as he does not act wilfully or in bad faith. ‘That discretion may, in good faith (but not arbitrarily), be exercised with respect to when, how and against whom to initiate criminal proceedings.’ State on Inf. McKittrick v. Wallach, 353 Mo. 312 , 182 S.W.2d 313, 319 , 155 A.L. R. 1.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Where a majority of a multi-judge court arrive at the same general result but for different reasons — where it does not appear that a majority of the court agreed as to the reasoning or as to a particular ground of the decision — the case cannot be considered as authority on the point concurred in by some but less than a majority.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“That no law shall be passed impairing the freedom of speech, no matter by what means communicated: that every person shall be free to say, write or publish, or otherwise communicate whatever he will on any subject, being responsible for all abuses of that liberty....”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Simmer · State v. Roberts
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.