Sullivan v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1931
Citation profile
24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 24 later decisions — most recently February 2017
24 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 Hutchinson v. Commonwealth · Walker v. Commonwealth · Kelley v. Commonwealth · Young 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The charge with respect to the conduct of the accused which was alleged as rendering the accused guilty of an offense remained unchanged, namely, that she “did unlawfully ... store for sale ardent spirits.” Precisely the same conduct on the part of the accused was charged in the amended as in the original indictment. The amendments of the indictment concerned merely the matter charged in aggravation of the offense as compared with the offense if it had been a first offense, and of the punishment therefor, under the statute; which did not at all change the character of the second offense itself for which the accused stood indicted.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he bare fact that the amendment so allowed charged a different intent, though based on the same overt acts, i.e., breaking, entering and shooting, which intent, while if proved would enhance the punishment, nevertheless did not, within the meaning of the statute, change the nature of the offense charged in the original indictment. As amended the indictment still charged a felony of the same general nature or class.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the bare fact that the amendment allowed authorizes a greater punishment than that authorized for the offense charged in the original indictment does not of itself change the character of the offense charged.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Rawls v. Com.
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.