Commonwealth v. White’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “a trial court may not impose a term-of-years sentence on a juvenile convicted of homicide if that term-of-years sentence equates to a de facto [life-without-parole] sentence unless it finds, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the juvenile is incapable of rehabilitation.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Lekka

2. “[a] person who at the time of the commission of the offense was 15 years of age or older shall be sentenced to a term of life imprisonment without parole, or a term of imprisonment, the minimum of which shall be at least 35 years to life.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Blount

3. “[t]o be meaningful or, at least, potentially meaningful, it must at least be plausible that one could survive until the minimum release date with some consequential likelihood that a non-trivial amount of time at liberty awaits.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Blount