Williams v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1948
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 34 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 43 later decisions — most recently April 2008 · most notably Root v. Cunningham (1965), United States v. Johnson (1970)
9 federal appellate · 34 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 Noell v. Commonwealth · Hart v. Commonwealth · Palmer v. Commonwealth · McLean v. Commonwealth · Harris 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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he prisoner's right of personal presence in a felony case throughout the trial from arraignment to sentence, when anything is done that can affect his interest, is an inalienable one. It is to be rigidly and jealously guarded. Yet, in its protection and enforcement, it must not be so enlarged as to exceed its true scope and thereby made to exclude all inquiry into and consideration of purely legal matters by the trial judge which are in fact and reality merely careful and prudent preparation for the resumption and conduct of the trial.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Sometimes it is difficult to draw the line between proper and improper comments, hence the general rule is to leave such distinction largely to the discretion of the trial court, whose ruling will be allowed to stand unless it is made to appear probable that the party complaining has been substantially prejudiced by the objectionable remarks or argument.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.