2009 Pa. Super. 3 - Commonwealth v. Hanna’s Empirical Analysis
2009
Citation profile
11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently November 2025
11 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 Commonwealth v. Wexler · 244 Pa. Super. 62 - Commonwealth v. Malone · Commonwealth v. D.M. · 305 Pa. Super. 600 - Matter of Pflaum · 2001 Pa. Super. 331 - Commonwealth v. Lutz
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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The decision to grant or deny a request for expungement of an arrest record lies in the sound discretion of the trial judge, who must balance the competing interests of the petitioner and the Commonwealth. We review the decision of the trial court for an abuse of discretion.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“In arriving at its decision, the Court placed great weight in the strength of the Commonwealth's case against [V.A.M.], and in this connection notes that [V.A.M.] was never found not guilty, but to the contrary only had his case dismissed when the victim could not appear to testify a second time, which was over ten years later, because she could not be found. Although [V.A.M.] presented some evidence from a private investigator who found the victim's address back in 1996, it could not be conclusively established that the District Attorney's Office could have found the victim. Further, Mr. Fisher and Mr. [Ehrlich] both testified to the strength of the Commonwealth's case against [V.A.M.] and how the DNA results do not mean that [V.A.M.] was not one of the perpetrators of the rape of the victim, but only that he did not ejaculate during the rape. The Court found the testimony of Mr. Fisher and Mr. [Ehrlich] to be entirely reasonable and credible. The Court believes that the Commonwealth has a great interest in retaining the arrest record stemming from crimes as serious as rape. The general public should have knowledge of the arrest of a person for rape where they are convicted, and then later are granted a new trial due to DNA evidence. It is in society's best interest to make available to the public any thing indicative of a defendant's potential propensity to commit serious crimes. Specifically in this case, a nolle prosse of [V.A.M.'s] charges, ten years after the incident o”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[1] the strength of the Commonwealth's case against the petitioner, [2] the reasons the Commonwealth gives for wishing to retain the records, [3] the petitioner's age, criminal record, and employment history, [4] the length of time that has elapsed between the arrest and the petition to expunge, and [5] the specific adverse consequences the petitioner may endure should expunction be denied.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.