Pepoon v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1951
Citation profile
34 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently March 1999 · most notably State v. Troupe (1996), Cartera v. Commonwealth (1978)
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 Chappell v. White · McCann v. Commonwealth · O'Boyle v. Commonwealth · Washington-Virginia Railway Co. v. Deahl · Kirby 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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In criminal trials for rape and assault with intent to ravish, ... it may be shown by the testimony of the prosecuting witness, or that of other witnesses, that the prosecutrix made complaint of the outrage soon after its commission, for the purpose of corroborating her testimony, but not as independent evidence of the offense charged.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“For peculiar reasons, the complaint of the victim of this diabolical outrage and crime . . . must at once make complaint, or she will be suspected of consent. The instincts of human nature, revolting at this unnatural and heinous crime, compels the victim to cry out and denounce its foul perpetrator”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[e]ven if the rule admitting evidence of a recent complaint in rape cases were extended to all sex offenses, including sodomy ... it must first be established that the testimony which is sought to be introduced as a complaint was in fact a recent complaint and conforms to the rules of evidence controlling the admission of such testimony.”
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.