Mullins v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 4 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Section 3988 of the Code of 1904 does declare it unlawful for any attorney for the Commonwealth to go before any grand jury during their deliberations, except when duly sworn to testify as a witness, with the qualification that ‘he may advise the foreman of the grand jury or any members thereof in relation to the discharge of their duties.’ It is unquestionably the policy of the statute, as has been the practice in this jurisdiction, to keep the grand jury independent of all outside interference, free and untrammeled in their deliberations, and while it is highly reprehensible for any attorney for the Commonwealth to violate in any degree either the terms or the policy of the statute, it would be a strained construction of it, upon the facts in this case, to say there has been such a disregard thereof as was or might have been injurious and prejudicial to the ac cused -and calling for a dismissal of the indictment against him, upon the ground that it was returned by the grand jury because the attorney for the Commonwealth went before the grand jury while they were in session at the July term of the court, 1912, at which term this indictment was found and returned into court.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Draper v. Commonwealth