Thaniel v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1922
Citation profile
14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently May 2005
14 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 Bram v. United States · Fitzpatrick v. United States · Sawyer v. United States · People v. . Tice · Mullins 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In the Mullins Case, the former statements of the accused which the court said were improperly admitted had not been made as a witness in his own behalf, but at a coroner’s inquest, and were testified to by a third party as a witness in chief for the Commonwealth. The case would, therefore, be in point here as authority for the accused but for the fact that there is (contrary to his contention) a clear distinction between a case in which the Commonwealth undertakes to prove by evidence in chief statements made by an accused person upon a former legal examination (not as a witness for himself), and a case in which the Commonwealth merely seeks to bring out, or to lay the foundation for bringing out, such statement by cross-examination of the prisoner himself when he takes the stand in his own behalf”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“On the day after the homicide the coroner held an inquest at which [Thaniel] testified as a witness. While the record is not entirely clear upon the point, we shall assume, in order to give [Thaniel] the full benefit of his contention, that he was duly summoned and that he did not voluntarily offer himself as a witness. He was not under arrest at that time, nor, so far as the record shows, had he been charged with the crime. Upon this assumption and under these circumstances, even though his testimony at the coroner’s inquest may have tended to exculpate him, he cannot be regarded as having been there in the capacity of a witness in his own behalf.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“and if so sworn and examined he shall be deemed to have waived his privilege of not giving evidence against himself.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.