Keeler v. Superior Court
2 Cal. 3d 619; 470 P.2d 617; 87 Cal. Rptr. 481 (1970) 
(in bank) (deletions not indicated)

The "Point" of the Case

At its simplest level, Keeler is about the born alive rule, its derivation and current force.  No teacher of Criminal Law would use Keeler (or any case, or any assigned reading) to establish this point. 

At the next level, Keeler is about sources of criminal law and the interplay of "common law" and statute.  It leads to consideration of the meaning of the phrase "common law."

On a yet more sophisticated level, Keeler is about judicial method, i.e., how courts knead the raw material of the law to answer an issue.

    Keeler appears in half-dozen or more of the leading casebooks in Criminal Law, very near the beginning of the course - it is often the first relatively complete judicial opinion students read.  The casebook version might be only four to five printed pages.  This edited version, deleting many internal citations, is about 25% shorter than the full version in the state reporter.