Stearns v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

52 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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““If a statute makes it a crime to do this or that or that, mentioning several things disjunctively, all may indeed, in general, be charged in a single count, but it must use the conjunctive “and” where “or” occurs in the statute, else it will be defective asi being uncertain. Therefore an indictment upon a statute of this kind may allege in a, single count that the defendant did as many of the forbidden things as the pleader chooses, employing' the conjunction “and” where the statute has “or” and it will not be double, and it will be established at the trial by proof of any one of them.””

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

2. ““The pleader could have inserted separate counts charging the several offences, and the party would have been convicted if warranted by the proof of either offence.””

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