15 Va. App. 432 - Burchette v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 46 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 51 later decisions — most recently March 2013 · most notably Taylor v. Waters (1996), 19 Va. App. 437 - Logan v. Commonwealth (1994)
3 federal appellate · 46 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 Doyle v. Ohio · Michigan v. Summers · Austin Products Co. v. Workers' Compensation Insurers Rating Association of Minnesota · 4 Va. App. 53 - Williams v. Commonwealth · Drew 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 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The Commonwealth presented no evidence from which one reasonably could infer that Burchette occupied the vehicle or had exercised dominion over it while the marijuana was present in it. The evidence failed to show either when Burchette may have used or occupied the vehicle or when or for how long the drugs or paraphernalia had been in it. The evidence failed to show that Burchette was the exclusive or primary operator of the vehicle, or that he possessed a set of keys to the vehicle, or when or by whom the vehicle had been most recently operated or occupied. The circumstances were not such that one reasonably could infer, to the exclusion of other reasonable hypotheses, that Burchette, as the owner of the vehicle, knew of the presence, nature and character of the contraband that was found in it.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“[o]wnership or occupancy ... of premises where [contraband is] ... found is a circumstance that may be considered together with other evidence tending to prove that the owner or occupant exercised dominion and control over items ... on the premises in order to prove that the owner or occupant constructively possessed the contraband----”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“[O]ccupancy of a vehicle . . . where illicit drugs are found is a circumstance that may be considered together with other evidence tending to prove that the . . . occupant exercised dominion and control over items in the vehicle . . . in order to prove that the . . . occupant constructively possessed the contraband; however, . . . occupancy alone is insufficient to prove knowing possession of drugs located . . . in a vehicle. Furthermore, proof that a person is in close proximity to contraband is a relevant fact that, depending on the circumstances, may tend to show that, as an. . . occupant . . . of a vehicle, the person necessarily knows of the presence, nature and character of a substance that is found there. However, in order for . . . occupancy. . . of a vehicle to be sufficient to support the inference that the . . . occupant also possessed contraband that was located . . . in the vehicle, the . . . occupant must be shown to have exercised dominion and control over the premises and to have known of the presence, nature, and character of the contraband at the time of such. . . occupancy.”
3 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.