Fitzpatrick v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 1 district · 10 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““When bail is given, the principal is regarded as delivered to the custody of his sureties. Their dominion is a continuance of the original imprisonment. Whenever they choose to do so, they may seize him and deliver him up in their discharge; and if that cannot be done at once, they may imprison him until it can be done. They may exercise their rights in person or by agent. They may pursue him into another State; may arrest him on the Sabbath; and if necessary, may break and enter his house for that purpose. The seizure is not made by virtue of new process. None is needed. It is likened to the rearrest by the sheriff of an escaping prisoner.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Maynard v. Kear · Austin v. State

2. “In accord with the purpose of a bail bond and to make control of the principal by the surety effective, the surety has been regarded as subrogated to the rights and means possessed by the State for that purpose and to be entitled to seize his principal for the purpose of surrendering him in discharge of the surety’s liability, and, to the extent necessary to accomplish this, the surety may restrain him of his liberty. Although the surety has the right to requisition official help to take the principal into custody, for the purpose of surrendering him in exoneration of his liability, the surety has also been regarded as entitled to take the principal into custody himself, and at common law no process was necessary to authorize the arrest of the principal by his bail. On the ground that the right to take the principal into custody and surrender him results from the nature of the undertaking by the bail, the rule permitting arrest without process has been applied to the right to arrest the principal in another state.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 125 Md. App. 77 - Herd v. State

3. “The right of a surety to recapture his principal is not a matter of criminal procedure, but arises from the private undertaking implied in the furnishing of the bond. It is not a right of the state but of the surety- [The state] cannot invoke the right of a surety to seize and surrender his principal, for this is a private and not a governmental remedy. It is equally true that the surety, if he has the right, is not required to resort to legal process to detain his principal for the purpose of making surrender.... As long as the principal remains within the jurisdiction, the right of bail to arrest and surrender him without process is conceded. As this right is a private one and not accomplished through governmental procedure, there would seem to be no obstacle to its exercise wherever the surety finds the principal. Needing no process, judicial or administrative, to seize his principal, jurisdiction does not enter into the question.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 914 F. Supp. 1390 - Hunt v. Steve Dement Bail Bonds, Inc.