Diggs v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

23 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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““His appointment, though defeasible and invalid, is color of title. If the defendant accepted the appointment, and exercised the duties of the office, he was an officer de facto, though there may have been a solicitor de jure claiming the office. The law, so long as he kept in the line of his official duty, would have extended him the protection afforded the rightful officer. Official responsibility, civil and criminal, is but just compensation for this protection. When lie is called to answer for malfeasance, he cannot be permitted to assail the validity of his appointment; he is estopped from abnegating his official capacity. 1 Bish. Crim. Law, § 917. “In Rex v. Berdett, 6 Car. & P. 124, a letter carrier was indicted for embezzling an overcharge on a letter delivered to him. No evidence of his appointment as a letter carrier was offered; but one of the-witnesses incidentally stated that he acted as such. The statute under which he was indicted prohibited and punished embezzlement by 'public officers. The court submitted the fact of embezzlement, and the question whether the prisoner had acted as letter carrier, to the jury, declaring that if the two facts concurred, the prisoner was guilty; and he was convicted. In Allen v. McNeel, 1 Mill, Const. (S. C.) 459, it is said, ‘When a person is sued for any act done by him in an official capacity, it does not lie in his mouth to say he is not the person he has held himself out to the world to be.’ In State v. McEntyre, 25 N. C. (”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Kramer v. State