2011 Pa. Super. 27 - Commonwealth v. Janda’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Pursuant to the “totality of the circumstances” test set forth by the United States Supreme Court in [Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 , 103 S.Ct. 2317 , 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983)], the task of an issuing authority is simply to make a practical, commonsense decision whether, given all of the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, including the veracity and basis of knowledge of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.... It is the duty of a court reviewing an issuing authority’s probable cause determination to ensure that the magistrate had a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed. In so doing, the reviewing court must accord deference to the issuing authority’s probable cause determination, and must view the information offered to establish probable cause in a commonsense, non-technical manner.”

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

2. “The traditional justification for permissible joinder of offenses or consolidation of indictments appears to be the judicial economy which results from a single trial. The argument against joinder or consolidation is that where a defendant is tried at one trial for several offenses, several kinds of prejudice may occur: (1) [t]he defendant may be confounded in presenting defenses, as where his defense to one charge is inconsistent with his defenses to the others; (2) the jury may use the evidence of one of the offenses to infer a criminal disposition and on the basis of that inference, convict the defendant of the other offenses; and (3) the jury may cumulate the evidence of the various offenses to find guilt when, if the evidence of each offense had been considered separately, it would not so find.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2016 Pa. Super. 247 - Commonwealth v. Richard

3. “[T]he proper standard of review when considering whether to affirm the sentencing court’s determination is an abuse of discretion. [A]n abuse of discretion is more than a mere error of judgment; thus, a sentencing court will not have abused its discretion unless the record discloses that the judgment exercised was manifestly unreasonable, or the result of partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill-will. In more expansive terms, our Court recently offered: An abuse of discretion may not be found merely because an appellate court might have reached a different conclusion, but requires a result of manifest unreasonableness, or partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill-will, or such lack of support so as to be clearly erroneous.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2012 Pa. Super. 155 - Commonwealth v. Provenzano