State v. Scaduto’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. “If the offence defined in section 40 has resulted in the death of one of the parties engaged, the party which has caused the death must be held liable for manslaughter. He cannot be proceeded against alone for an offence which can only arise when participated in by two, at least if one of these participants is dead by the survivor's act. Further, it would seem that under an indictment under the fortieth section the defendants could not set up self-defence as against each other. The offence of that section seems to arise out of a mutual agreement to fight together, and not the fight which may arise where one unjustifiably attacks another.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 86 N.J. Super. 585 - State v. Jordon

2. “Our criminal law provides that if any two or more persons shall fight together, or shall commit, or attempt to commit, an assault and battery upon each other, or shall be present aiding, assisting, abetting &c., each of them shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. * * * * * * * * * * * But if they [defendant and decedent] got together to settle their quarrel by a fight, whether they were going to do it with weapons or with the weapons which nature alone gave them — that is, their fists — and each one struck the other, the law says that each of them is guilty of assault and battery. * * *”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 86 N.J. Super. 585 - State v. Jordon

3. “* * * One of the characteristics of this offence is that one person alone cannot commit it or be separately indicted for it. It is aimed against two or more, and the section says that the two or more who engage in it shall be `jointly' guilty of a misdemeanor. It seems not unlikely that section 2 of the act of 1874 [1875] was purposely omitted from the act of 1898 because inconsistent with the first section of the act of 1874 [1875], for how could one person only be guilty of a crime which required at least two to commit?”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 86 N.J. Super. 585 - State v. Jordon