Nelson v. Moriarty’s Empirical Analysis
484 F.2d 1034 · 1973
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 2 district · 18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently May 2014 · most notably 691 So. 2d 918 - Collins v. State (1997), Commonwealth v. Miller (1982)
11 federal appellate · 2 district · 18 state decisions — followed in 14 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.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Roe v. Wade · Eisenstadt v. Baird · Stanley v. Georgia · Lambert v. People of the State of California · Powell v. Texas
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The arbitrary age of consent in these cases has been established by our legislature as a matter of public policy for the obvious protection of young and immature females. We cannot properly make exceptions. Therefore, in a prosecution for alleged statutory rape a defendant’s knowledge of the age of the girl involved is immaterial and his reasonable belief that she is over the age of eighteen years is no defense. 3 [Citations omitted.] Petitioner claims that his honest belief that the prosecutrix of the statutory rape charge was over 16 years of age should constitute a defense, of constitutional dimensions, to statutory rape. The effect of mens rea and mistake on state criminal law has generally been left to the discretion of the states. The Supreme Court has never held that an honest mistake as to the age of the prosecutrix is a constitutional defense to statutory rape, and nothing in the Court’s recent decisions clarifying the scope of procreative priva cy suggests that a state may no longer place the risk of mistake as to the prose-cutrix’s age on the person engaging in sexual intercourse with a partner who may be young enough to fall within the protection of the statute. Petitioner’s argument is without merit. 4 [Citations omitted.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Elton“[t]he Supreme Court has never held that an honest mistake as to the age of the prosecutrix is a constitutional defense to statutory rape ... and nothing in the Court’s recent decisions clarifying the scope of procreative privacy [citations omitted] suggests that a state may no longer place the risk of mistake as to the prosecutrix’s age on the person engaging in sexual intercourse with a partner who may be young enough to fall within the protection of the statute. Petitioner’s argument is without merit.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.