2 Va. App. 497 - Cooper v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
46 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 46 later decisions — most recently April 2015 · most notably 14 Va. App. 988 - Campbell v. Commonwealth (1992), 39 Va. App. 562 - Gaines v. Commonwealth (2003)
46 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 Strawderman v. Commonwealth · Hutchinson v. Commonwealth · Westry v. Commonwealth · Smith 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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“`instructions ... should inform the jury as to the law of the case applicable to the facts in such a manner that [the jury] may not be misled.'”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage““It is elementary that the burden is on the Commonwealth to prove every essential element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.” Unless those elements are defined by instructions available to the members of the jury during their deliberation, they cannot properly determine whether the Commonwealth has carried its burden. The duty to give such instructions is not discharged by simple reference to the indictment or by reading the applicable statute to the jury. “It is always the duty of the court at the proper time to instruct the jury on all principles of law applicable to the pleadings and the evidence (emphasis added)” and “a correct statement of the law applicable to the case, when the law is stated, ... [is one of the] essentials of a fair trial.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.