2005 Pa. Super. 61 - Commonwealth v. West’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Pennsylvania courts have previously followed Barker in resolving claims that procedural delays in criminal cases constitute a substantive due process violation, and we have set forth a four prong test in which we inquire as follows: (1) whether the delay itself is sufficient to trigger further inquiry; (2) if so, the reason for the delay; (3) whether the defendant timely asserted his rights, and; (4) whether there is any prejudice to the defendant from the delay.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2008 Pa. Super. 147 - Commonwealth v. Fox

2. “overall, we find that the Barker factors weigh in favor of [West]'s due process violation claim and that the government's act in returning [West] to prison following an inordinate delay attributable to the government's course of recognizing, then ignoring, the outstanding question of whether [West] served his 1990 sentence, constitutes grounds to discharge [West] from his sentence at this time.”

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

3. “a deliberate attempt to delay should be weighed heavily against the government while `[a] more neutral reason such as negligence . . . should be weighted less heavily but nevertheless should be considered since the ultimate responsibility for such circumstances must rest with the government rather than with the defendant.'”

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