Reynolds v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The words of a statute are to he understood in their popular signification, when nothing appears to the contrary. Mayor, etc. [of City of Wetumpka] v. Winter, 29 Ala. 651 ; Thurman v. State, 18 Ala. 276 ; Favers v. Glass, 22 Ala. 621 . To dispose of, in popular sense, when used in reference to property, means to part with the right to, or ownership of it; in other words, a change of property. If this does not take place, is would scarcely be said the property is disposed of. That would not be the popular sense in which those words are employed. Taking a glass of spirits or wine with a friend or visitor, in one’s own residence, is one of the forms in which hospitality not infrequently shows itself. We are not dealing with the morality, or hurtfulness of the custom. That is not a judicial question. We are endeavoring to arrive at the intention of the law-making power. In this (possibly injurious) act of hospitality, we apprehend no one would entertain the thought of a change of property, or ownership — that he was thereby ‘disposing of’ the article thus used and consumed. Quite as appropriate would it be to affirm that the host had disposed of the viands his friend consumed, while enjoying a hospitable dinner with him. “We would not be understood as affirming that no disposition can be made, under the statute we are construing, except by bargain and sale. A gift, consummated by delivery, works as complete a change of property or ownership, as does a sale on valuable considerat”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Smith v. State