State v. Canola’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 55 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 63 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"There can be no doubt of the general rule of law, that a person engaged in the commission of an unlawful act is legally responsible for all the consequences which may naturally or necessarily flow from it, and that, if he combines and confederates with others to accomplish an illegal purpose, he is liable criminaliter for the acts of each and all who participate with him in the execution of the unlawful design. As they all act in concert for a common object, each is the agent of all the others, and the acts done are therefore the acts of each and all. [T]he rule of criminal responsibility for the acts of others is subject to the reasonable limitation that the particular act of one of a party for which his associates and confederates are to be held liable must be shown to have been done for the furtherance or in prosecution of the common object and design for which they combined together. Without such limitation, a person might be held responsible for acts which were not the natural or necessary consequences of the enterprise or undertaking in which he was engaged, and which he could not either in fact or in law be deemed to have contemplated or intended. No person can be held guilty of homicide unless the act is either actually or constructively his, and it cannot be his act in either sense unless committed by his own hand or by some one acting in concert with him or in furtherance of a common object or purpose. Certainly that cannot be said to be an act of a party in any ju”

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

2. “the doctrine of felony murder does not extend to a killing, although growing out of the commission of the felony, if directly attributable to the act of one other than the defendant or those associated with him in the unlawful enterprise.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Myers · 182 Ill. 2d 247 - People v. Dekens

3. “Conventional formulations of the felony murder rule would not seem to encompass liability in this case. As stated by Blackstone about the time of the American Revolution, the rule was: “[I]f one intends to do another felony, and undesignedly kills a man, this also is murder.” ... A recent study of the early formulations of the felony murder rule by such authorities as Lord Coke, Foster and Blackstone and of later ones by Judge Stephen and Justice Holmes concluded that they were concerned solely with situations where the felon or a confederate did the actual killing. . . . [I]t has been observed that the English courts never applied the felony murder rule to hold a felon guilty of the death of his co-felon at the hands of the intended victim.”

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