Smith v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1910
Citation profile
44 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 44 later decisions — most recently November 1987 · most notably Slaughter v. Commonwealth (1987), Shell v. Commonwealth (1932)
44 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 Commonwealth v. Hargis · Lockard v. Commonwealth · Pace v. Commonwealth · Commonwealth v. Welch
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 44 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A conviction may be had upon circumstantial evidence alone. It is often more conclusive and satisfactory than what is called positive testimony, or testimony out of the mouths of witnesses detailing what they personally know about the transaction being investigated.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Sams v. Commonwealth
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.