Randolph v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1949
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 53 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 62 later decisions — most recently November 2006 · most notably Fortini v. Murphy (2001), Maggitt v. Wyrick (1976)
6 federal appellate · 53 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 Owens v. Commonwealth · Burford v. Commonwealth · Sims v. Commonwealth · Mitchell v. Commonwealth · Rasnake 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 62 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If from the improbability of his story and his manner of relating it, or from its contradictions within itself, or by the attending facts and circumstances, the jury are convinced that he is not speaking the truth, they may reject his testimony, even though his reputation for truth is not attacked and he is not contradicted by other witnesses.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“When admissible, such evidence bears on the questions as to who was the aggressor or what were the reasonable appre hensions of the defendant for his life and safety. As to the latter question, “[t]he true solution is to exercise a discretion, and to admit such facts when common sense tells us that they could legitimately affect a defendant’s apprehensions.” As to the former, who was the aggressor, the question is what the deceased probably did, and evidence of recent acts of violence towards a third person ought to be received if “so connected in time, place and circumstance with the homicide, as to likely characterize the deceased’s conduct towards the defendant.””
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.