Tomlin v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently April 2007
20 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 283 So. 2d 1 - State v. Dixon · McNeil v. Director, Patuxent Institution · Young v. State · United States v. Hyde · 49 Ala. App. 233 - Thigpen 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“". . . did unlawfully, intentionally, and with malice aforethought kill Richard Brune and Cheryl Moore, by shooting them with a gun, wherein both Richard Brune and Cheryl Moore were intentionally killed by PHILLIP WAYNE TOMLIN by one or a series of acts, in violation of Act Number 213, Section 2, Sub-Section J (Act # 213, § 2 (j)) and Act Number 213, Section 6, Sub-Section H (Act # 213, § 6 (h)), Acts of Alabama, Regular Session, 1975, in that said killings were especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. . . ."”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““A basic rule of review in criminal cases is that criminal statutes are to be strictly construed in favor of those persons sought to be subjected to their operation, i.e., defendants.” “Penal statutes are to reach no further in meaning than their words.” “One who commits an act which does not come within the words of a criminal statute, according to the general and popular understanding of those words, when they are not used technically, is not to be punished thereunder, merely because the act may contravene the policy of the statute.” “No person is to be made subject to penal statutes by implication and all doubts concerning their interpretation are to predominate in favor of the accused.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Magwood v. Culliver“As early cases have held, unnecessary averments in an indictment do not impair its validity. The most that can result from them is to hold the prosecution to the proof of them. . . . Surplusage does not vitiate an indictment otherwise good. . . . As long as the remaining portions of an indictment validly charge a crime, the existence of surplusage will not affect the validity of a conviction.”
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.