State v. Thomas’s Empirical Analysis
1952
Citation profile
52 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 52 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably State v. Taylor (1972), State v. Hunt (2003)
52 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 State v. Thomas · State v. . Patterson · Lewis v. . Commissioners of Wake · State v. . Beam · State v. Lytle.
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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The experience of early days proved the practice of trying criminal cases upon the presentments of grand jurors to be wholly impracticable. As a consequence, the General Assembly of 1797 outlawed the practice by a statute, which has been retained to this day in slightly changed phraseology, and which now appears in this provision of the General Statutes: “No person shall be arrested on a presentment of the grand jury, or put on trial before any court, but on indictment found by the grand jury, unless otherwise provided by law.” G.S. 15-137. Since the adoption of the Act of 1797, a presentment is regarded as nothing more than an instruction by the grand jury to the public prosecuting attorney for framing a bill of indictment for submission to them. S. v. Cain, 8 N.C. 352 ; 42 C.J.S., Indictments and Information, section 7. The reasons which motivated the General Assembly to abolish the practice of trying criminal cases upon presentments were summarized in this fashion in S. v. Guilford, supra: “Prior to the Act of 1797, it was found that the presentments made by the grand juries were frequently so informal that a trial could not be had upon them, and very frequently the presentment would set out a matter which was not a criminal offense; so that sometimes the citizen was arrested and greatly oppressed when he had committed no violation of the public law, and oftentimes he was put to the trouble and expense of a trial, when, if the public law had been violated, the charge was m”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Cole““In any criminal action in the superior courts where the offense charged is a misdemeanor, the defendant may waive the finding and return into court of a bill of indictment. If the defendant pleads not guilty, the prosecution shall be on a written information, signed by the solicitor, which information shall contain as full and complete a statement of the accusation as would be required in an indictment. No waiver of a bill of indictment shall be allowed by the court unless by the consent of the defendant’s counsel in such action who shall be one either employed by the defendant to defend him in the action or one appointed by the court to examine into the defendant’s case and report as to the same to the court. The provisions of this section shall not apply to any case heard in the superior court on an appeal from an inferior court.” (Emphasis added.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““No person shall be put to answer any criminal charge except as hereinafter allowed, but by indictment, presentment, or impeachment, but any person, when represented by counsel, may, under such regulations as the Legislature shall prescribe, loaive indictment in all except capital cases.” (Emphasis added.)”
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.