Ex Parte Walls’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"A basic rule of review in criminal cases is that criminal statutes are to be strictly construed in favor of those persons sought to be subjected to their operation, i.e., defendants. Schenher v. State, 38 Ala.App. 573 , 90 So.2d 234 , cert. denied, 265 Ala. 700 , 90 So.2d 238 (1956). "Penal statutes are to reach no further in meaning than their words. Fuller v. State, 257 Ala. 502 , 60 So.2d 202 (1952). "One who commits an act which does not come within the words of a criminal statute, according to the general and popular understanding of those words, when they are not used technically, is not to be punished thereunder, merely because the act may contravene the policy of the statute. Fuller v. State, supra , citing Young's Case, 58 Ala. 358 (1877). "No person is to be made subject to penal statutes by implication and all doubts concerning their interpretation are to predominate in favor of the accused. Fuller v. State, supra ."”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cockrell v. State · Ex Parte Bertram

2. “Statutes creating crimes are to be strictly construed in favor of the accused; they may not be held to apply to cases not covered by the words used. . . .”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cockrell v. State · Hankins v. State

3. ““It is undisputed that eight of the radios supplied to the police by Baker and later purchased by Walls had never been stolen. Therefore, under Farzley [v. State, 281 Ala. 60 , 163 So. 394 (1935) ], they cannot be the subject of the offense of receiving stolen property. ‘[I]f as a matter of fact [the goods] had not been stolen, there could be no conviction, no matter how strong the evidence tending to show that a defendant had reasonable grounds for believing they were stolen.’ Smitherman v. State, 340 So.2d 896, 900 (Ala.Cr.App.1976), interpreting Farzley. In other words, a defendant may possess the requisite guilty mind, but if the property is not actually stolen property, then a circumstance that is unknown to him prevents him from committing the completed act prohibited by statute, i.e., the offense of receiving stolen property. “The state nonetheless urges that we should allow a conviction for receiving stolen property under § 13A-8-16 whenever a defendant has reasonable grounds to believe that property received has been stolen, without respect to whether the property received had been stolen in fact. The state refers us to cases from other jurisdictions in which courts have held that a defendant may be criminally liable for receiving, notwithstanding that the property received was not in fact stolen property. See State v. Bujan, 274 N.J.Super. 132 , 643 A.2d 628 (App.Div.1994); State v. Sweeney, 701 S.W.2d 420 (Mo.1985); State v. Pappas, 705 P.2d 1169 (Utah 1985). These”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Rich v. State