5 Wash. App. 373 - State v. Catterall’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The consensual nature of the purchase-sale transaction requires that the purchaser cooperate with the seller in effecting the sale. As a matter of abstract logic, that cooperation requires that the purchaser aid or abet the seller in making the sale. If, however, the substantive statute defining the crime separates the sale transaction into its component parts, punishing only the seller and not the purchaser, then the legal consequences intended by this separation in treatment creates a problem of determining legislative intent. The separation suggests that the legislature may have intended that the purchaser, who is directly exempted, should not lose his exemption by indirection through application of a prior general aiding and abetting statute. To permit the exemption to be lost by indirection would prevent the accomplishment of those very policies intended to be effectuated by the direct exemption granted. “What has been said about the noncriminal responsibility of the exempt purchaser applies also to his agent or one who assists the purchaser to make the purchase. ... It makes little sense to exempt the purchaser and yet hold his agent or helper criminally responsible for aiding the purchaser to do what is lawful.” 5 Wash. App. at 377-79 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 5 Kan. App. 2d 144 - State v. Haynes

2. “The state recognizes that RCW 69.40.060, unlike the now repealed 26 U.S.C. §§ 4704 , 4705, does not punish the drug purchaser. ... It punishes only the drug seller. Furthermore, the exemption of the purchaser is emphasized by the fact that RCW 69.40.060 does not expressly provide for criminal responsibility of the aider or abettor. . . . [W]hen a purchaser is exempted, the statute retaining criminal responsibility only for the seller, the purchaser by his participation in the purchase, is not to be treated as an accomplice of the seller. . . . What has been said about the noncriminal responsibil ity of the exempt purchaser applied also to his agent or one who assists the purchaser to make the purchase. . . . It makes little sense to exempt the purchaser and yet hold his agent or helper criminally responsible for aiding the purchaser [to] do what is lawful. . . . . . . Since the purchaser cannot be held responsible as a principal by reason of his participation in the purchase, neither should the defendant be responsible for his help to the purchaser in effecting that purchase.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 82 Wash. 2d 851 - State v. Walker

3. “You are instructed that mere physical presence and assent to the commission of the crime is not enough to constitute one an aider or abettor of the principal committing the crime.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 7 Wash. App. 878 - State v. Walker