Commonwealth v. Mitchell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

22 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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Commonwealth: And how did the Defendant become the subject of this investigation? Detective Hunter: Upon the initial interview of the informant, he identified several targets that he had conducted transactions with that he had purchased narcotics from. Generally, what I would do is I make a list somewhere in some personal notes and we’ll — I’ll verify some of the information that he’s told me, and then we’ll start working from that. Ms. Mitchell over there was identified by the informant. I had received some other complaints .... [after an overruled objection from the defense counsel] 2 .... I had received some other complaints, thus verifying the informant’s information that he told me, and then we decided to set up a transaction with Ms. Mitchell.”

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

2. “we again caution the Commonwealth that it is not at liberty to place upon the jury the burden of doing what is necessary to protect the community.”

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

3. “Again, reasonable inferences from the evidence.”

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