Smithwick v. . Ward’s Empirical Analysis
1859
Citation profile
5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently June 1956
5 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.
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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This element, in the estimate of (477) damages, is allowed, to punish the defendants for violating the laws, and by making them smart , to deter others as well as themselves from similar violations. The principle upon which society acts in punishing criminally is precisely the same. The public never is actuated by revenge, but solely by a motive of self-protection, and punishes to prevent a repetition of the offense by the culprit, or its perpetration by others.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.