Commonwealth v. Magee’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “a trial court's denial of counsel's petition to withdraw under the abuse of discretion standard. * * * The Rules of Criminal Procedure provide that an attorney for a defendant may not withdraw without leave of court. Pa.R.Crim.P. 120(B)(1). A comment to the rule explains: The court must make a determination of the status of a case before permitting counsel to withdraw. Although there are many factors considered by the court in determining whether there is good cause to permit the withdrawal of counsel, when granting leave, the court should determine whether new counsel will be stepping in or the defendant is proceeding without counsel, and that the change in attorneys will not delay the proceedings or prejudice the defendant, particularly concerning time limits. In addition, case law suggests other factors the court should consider, such as whether (1) the defendant has failed to meet his or her financial obligations to pay for the attorney's services and (2) there is a written contractual agreement between counsel and the defendant terminating representation at a specified stage in the proceedings such as sentencing .... Pa.R.Crim.P. 120, Cmt. This Court has stated: No brightline rules exist to determine whether a trial court has abused its discretion in denying a Petition to Withdraw as counsel. A balancing test must be utilized to weigh the interests of the client in a fair adjudication and the Commonwealth in the efficient administration of justice. Thus, a resolution of ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Sandusky