State v. Sebastian’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

77 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 77 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ . . . Unlawful carnal knowledge certainly includes what is meant by carnal abuse, if it be not synonymous with that. Rape is defined in Finch’s Law (Book III, Chap. XIII) as ‘the carnal abusing of a woman against her will.’ Our revisers dropped the word ‘unlawfully’ and retained the word ‘abuse.’ Carnal abuse is necessarily implied in carnal knowledge of a female who has given or can give no consent. Bishop on Statutory Crimes (3d Ed.), § 487. Whether it may be something less than that we have no occasion to inquire. See State v. Hummer, 73 N. J. L. 714, 718, 65 Atl. 249 . “In the case at bar, the jury were charged that, in order to justify a conviction, they must be satisfied that the defendant had carnal knowledge of the girl, and that if that had been proved, abuse was necessarily implied. A proper definition of carnal knowledge was given to them, to which no exception has been taken. This being so, the request for an instruction to the jury that to ‘abuse,’ within the meaning of the statute, was to injure the genital organs of the child and to injure them to an extent not naturally resulting from an act of normal sexual intercourse with a fully developed female, was rightly refused.” State v. Sebastian, 81 Conn. 1, 8 , 69 Atl. 1054 (1908).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 57 Wash. 2d 122 - State v. Cunday

2. ““Remote evidence, however, is not necessarily incompetent. Under the circumstances attending the case at bar, we are of the opinion that it cannot be said, as matter of law, that there was error in the admission of the testimony of this witness as to acts of sexual intercourse in June and July, whether received before or after the making of the election. It went to show the existence of relations between her and the defendant which tended to make the commission of the act of a similar nature, which was the subject of the charge, more probable, and so to confirm her previous testimony. That the accused was under the influence of a sexual passion in respect to this girl in July, which led him then to take advantage of her youth in order to gratify it, was logically relevant to the question whether he gave rein in the same manner to such a passion in respect to her, three months before. Thayer v. Thayer, 101 Mass. 111 . One fact is relevant to another fact whenever, according to the common course of events, the existence of the one, taken alone or in connection with other facts, renders the existence of the other either certain or more probable. State v. Blake, 69 Conn. 64, 76 , 36 Atl. 1019 .””

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