Vick v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
6
cited by 6 later decisions
4
states following
February 1988
most recently cited
6 state decisions
Relationships
Relies on Powell v. Texas · Easter v. District of Columbia · Driver v. Hinnant · 72 Wash. 2d 786 - City of Seattle v. Hill · 253 Cal. App. 2d 748 - In Re Spinks
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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The effect of such a concept is to do away with free will so far as the chronic alcoholic is concerned. One suffering from the disease of alcoholism has a compulsion to drink and to get drunk in public, and since this compulsion is said to be irresistible and not the product of the exercise of one’s will, it is said he cannot be held criminally responsible for public drunkenness. The inevitable result of such a holding is that the chronic alcoholic would also have to be relieved of the legal consequences of other crimes committed while under the influence of alcohol. One may not escape that conclusion. If the alcoholic’s public display of drunkenness is not his act because he was unable to resist the compulsion to drink to excess, then other things he does while in that intoxicated state would also not be his act — would not be the product of the exercise of his will. Thus, the person who becomes intoxicated involuntarily would have to be excused from acts performed while intoxicated, such as murder, rape, assault and battery, and others. We are unwilling to go this far... . Saying without more that one “loses the power of self-control with respect to the use of alcoholic beverages” fails to make a distinction between loss of self-control once an individual has commenced to drink and loss of control which makes it impossible for him to abstain from drinking in the first place. This is a crucial distinction, because presumably a person would have to display both characteristic”
2 later decisions 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.