Patterson v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The statute puts upon the claimant the burden of satisfying the court that he was ignorant of the illegal use of his car, and that such use was without his connivance or consent, express or implied. But this does not mean that perfect or complete proof of innocence is required. The degree to which the proof ought to satisfy the court need be reasonable only. Mere possibilities or mere speculation are not to be allowed to overcome uncontradicted evidence of actual facts. A conviction of bad faith on the part of the claimant should be based upon some evidence of his criminal knowledge, consent or connivance to the unlawful use of his vehicle, or upon circumstances from which there may be fairly inferred such knowledge or consent.””

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