Ruloff v. . the People’s Empirical Analysis
1871
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 85 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 99 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 1982 · most notably Wilson v. United States (1896), Albert Twining v. State of New Jersey (1908)
4 federal appellate · 85 state decisions — followed in 29 states
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.
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 99 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ * * * If, with this statute in force, the fact that he [the accused] is not sworn can be used against him, and suspicion be made to assume the form and have the force of evidence, and circumstances, however slightly tending to prove guilt, be made conclusive evidence of the fact, then the individual is morally coerced, although not actually compelled to be a witness against himself. The constitution, which protects a party accused of crime from being a witness against himself, will be practically abrogated.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“:“If the homicide was committed by one of several persons in the prosecution of an unlawful purpose or common design, in which the combining parties had united, and for the effecting whereof they had assembled, all were liable to answer criminally for the act; and if the homicide was murder, all were guilty of murder, assuming that it was within the common purpose.” “The evidence showed that the blow which caused the death was inflicted by one of three burglars while in the act of robbing the store; it was uncertain whether the accused actually inflicted the blow, and thus the question was raised as to his responsibility for such an act committed by one of his confederates. There was evidence from which to infer a purpose on the part of the burglars of resisting to the death any one who should oppose them, and the charge of the judge that such such an illegal purpose must have been formed before the actual commission of the offense, although not necessarily at the time when the parties went out with the common purpose of larceny, is held by the court to be a correct statement of the law.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“If there was a general resolution against all opposers, and to resist to the utmost all attempts to detain or hold in custody any of the parties, all of the persons present when the homicide was committed were equally guilty with him who fired the fatal shot.”
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.