Murdock v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The charge given by the court below was errone ous. It authorized the jury to infer that the relationship of husband and wife existed between the witness, Polly Jackson, and Dick Jackson at the time of the alleged burglary, because it was proved to exist at the time of the trial. When the existence of a personal relation, or a state of things continuous in its nature, is once established by proof, the law presumes that such status continues to exist as before until the contrary is proved, or until a different presumption is raised from the nature of the subject in question. (1 Greenl. Ev. § 41; 2 Whart. Law Ev. § 1288.) But this presumption cannot be permitted to operate retrospectively so as to infer the prior existence of coverture, or other like relationship, from proof of its present existence. It may be that the parties contracted the relationship within a few days before the trial.” (Murdock v. The State, 68 Ala. 567, 569 .)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. City of Topeka v. Chesney