State v. Burdette’s Empirical Analysis
1950
Citation profile
27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently May 2013 · most notably 161 W. Va. 517 - State v. Starkey (1978), 169 W. Va. 191 - State v. Hatfield (1982)
27 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 Kemmler · McElvaine v. Brush · 135 W. Va. 106 - State v. Painter · Maulding v. Commonwealth · Dawkins v. Commonwealth
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““You, the jury, are instructed that to constitute a wilful, deliberate and premeditated killing, it is not necessary that the intention to kill should exist for any particular length of time prior to the actual killing; it is only necessary that such intention should have come into existence for the first time at the time of the killing or at any moment previously.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““It was strongly contended, that chastisement, and not death, of the deceased, was clearly intended. Malice aforethought may consist in the intention to do great bodily harm, as well as to kill; and whether the intention be the one or the other, and death happen, the law will not surrender its general presumption, that the homicide is murder. . . . Much stress was also laid upon the circumstance, that the prisoner might have resorted to deadly weapons, which were at hand, if he had designed any fatal injury to the deceased; and that, instead of employing these, he had only availed himself of the weapons which nature had furnished him with. And it was moreover insisted, that no case had been found deciding the homicide to be murder, when, under such circumstances, the fatal attack had been made only with the fists, and the death of the party beaten was not immediately produced under the infliction of the violence; but followed some time afterwards. The fists may not, indeed, be regarded generally as a deadly weapon; but they become most deadly, by blows often repeated, long continued, and applied to vital and delicate parts of the body of a defenceless [sic], unresisting man on the ground.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted. Penalties shall be proportioned to the character and degree of the offense.”
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.