Alex v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 47 later decisions — most recently July 2022 · most notably Kimoktoak v. State (1978), State v. Nichols (1991)
47 state decisions — followed in 13 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
Relies on Griffin v. People of the State of Illinois · Morissette v. United States · Douglas v. People of State of California · Lane v. Brown · Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Sullivan v. Ashe
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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A]s applied to crimes generally, what is imperative is that an accused’s act be other than simply inadvertent or neglectful. What is essential is not an awareness that a given conduct is a “wrongdoing” in the sense that it is proscribed by law, but rather an awareness that one is committing the specific acts which are defined by law as a “wrongdoing”. It is ... no defense that one was not aware his acts were wrong in the sense that they were proscribed by law. So long as one acts intentionally, with cognizance of his behavior, he acts with the requisite awareness of wrongdoing.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“Save only as limited by constitutional safeguards, the legislature may choose any reasonable means to protect the people from the violation of criminal laws. In general, the comparative gravity of offenses and their classification and resultant punishment is for legislative determination.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Beltz v. State · Charles v. State“In general, the comparative gravity of offenses and their classification and resultant punishments is for legislative determination.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Shagloak v. State · ALEXIE v. State
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.