50 Cal. 3d 583 - People v. Clark’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 247 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 275 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2021 · most notably 53 Cal. 3d 771 - People v. Cooper (1991), 1 Cal. 4th 495 - People v. Kelly (1992)
11 federal appellate · 247 state decisions
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 People v. Green · 27 Cal. 3d 1 - People v. Green · People v. Haggerty
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 275 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Defendant's own testimony, his extrajudicial statements made before and after the offense, and the shotgun and ammunition found in the trunk of his rental car after the offense, afford overwhelming evidence that when he commenced the arson his intent was to start a fire that would drive the family out of the home. At that time his purpose was not to kill David Gawronski.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Clark v. Brown · Clark v. Brown“Thus if, as here, the defendant’s purpose in setting the fire is not to destroy property, but to drive the intended victim to a place where the defendant can more easily kill him, the felony lacks a purpose independent from the murder, and cannot support a felony-murder special circumstance.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Clark v. Brown · Clark v. Brown
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.