2008 Pa. Super. 69 - Commonwealth v. Weigle’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. “Robbery bears only a secondary relationship to theft but is principally directed at protection of the person.... Whatever distant association the two offenses may have through their relationship to property crimes is simply too tenuous to allow us to conclude that they share sufficient similar elements and are of the same class or character to be considered cognate offenses. * * * * [R]obbery is a non-cognate offense to [theft] because it does not serve a common purpose of protecting the same societal interest ... as was the case with murder and manslaughter in [ Tanner, supra ] and robbery and attempted robbery in Epps. [ [8] ] Further, [robbery] cannot be said to be "similar in nature and springing] from a common concern" [as theft] as was the case in [ Slingerland ].[ [9] ]”

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

2. “The decision to grant a motion to quash a criminal information or indictment “is within the sound discretion of the trial judge and will be reversed on appeal only where there has been a clear abuse of discretion.” Commonwealth v. Brown, 423 Pa.Super. 264 , 620 A.2d 1213, 1214 (Pa.Super.1993) (quoting Commonwealth v. Niemetz, 282 Pa.Super. 431 , 422 A.2d 1369, 1373 (Pa.Super.1980)). Discretion is abused when the course pursued by the trial court represents not merely an error of judgment, but where the judgment is manifestly unreasonable or where the law is not applied or where the record shows that the action is a result of partiality, prejudice, bias or ill will. Commonwealth v. Smith, 545 Pa. 487 , [491,] 681 A.2d 1288, 1290 (Pa.1996).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2010 Pa. Super. 1 - Commonwealth v. Wyland

3. “if we accept the Commonwealth's argument we would render the preliminary hearing meaningless as the Commonwealth would have free reign to ignore the issuing authority's determination as to a prima facie case and simply re-file the original charges by way of the criminal information.”

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