Powers v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1944
Citation profile
27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 27 later decisions — most recently January 2011 · most notably 41 Va. App. 250 - Kelly v. Commonwealth (2003), State v. Butler (2002)
27 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 Carter v. Commonwealth of Virginia Dickerson · Miller v. Commonwealth · Dickerson v. Commonwealth · Atlantic Coast Line Railroad v. Caple's Admimistratrix · Carter 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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The mere finding of the [contraband] upon the premises occupied by [the accused] and another created no presumption of law that [the accused] was in the possession of it.... There was no positive evidence of the possession of it by him. The circumstances were suspicious, to say the least; but circumstances of suspicion, no matter how grave or strong, are not proof of guilt sufficient to support a verdict of guilty. The actual commission of the crime by the accused must be shown by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to sustain his conviction.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Butler
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.