11 Va. App. 1 - Harrell v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
40 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently August 2011 · most notably 41 Va. App. 752 - Edwards v. Commonwealth (2003), Hamilton v. Com. (2010)
40 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 Jackson v. Virginia · Weatherford v. Bursey · Tison v. Arizona · Inge v. Commonwealth · Whitley v. Commonwealth
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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]t is possible that individuals who are lawfully assembled may become members of a `mob' without great deliberation.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“[O]nce the group assembled comprises a mob, if the assault or battery which is committed is a simple assault or battery, then because of Code § 18.2-57, every person composing the mob becomes criminally culpable even though the member may not have actively encouraged, aided, or countenanced the act. Thus, criminal accountability flows from being a member of the mob, regardless of whether the member aids and abets in the assault and battery. The characterization of the group action as the act of a mob has added significance because not only did it affect the class of felony for which [the accused] could have been convicted, but also meant that he could have been convicted even if the jury had believed that a person other than [the accused] had struck [the victim] with the club. Therefore, the question of whether the evidence was sufficient to establish that this was a mob offense is significant as to both the theory of guilt and the class of felony for which [the accused] was prosecuted.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]he statutory definition of a mob [in Code § 18.2-38] requires that the act of assembling be done for a specific purpose and with a specific intent”
2 later decisions 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.