2014 Pa. Super. 201 - Commonwealth v. Pander’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In addition, when we held the hearing there was concern about the fact that when you file a petition, we want to make sure that it is a meritorious petition, we do not want to have a frivolous petition, that there are some witnesses that would be available to testify, so the original bill required that each witness had to sign a statement and have a notarized, sworn statement at the end of the statement indicating that this was a true and correct representation of what he would testify to at the coming collateral hearing. There were objections to that, feeling that that was too onerous to require a defendant to go out and obtained notarized statements from all of his witnesses, some of which would be hostile witnesses, and I agreed with that. So as a result, this amendment allows a defendant to merely present a summary of the statement so we know generally what that witness is going to say and merely sign a certification. Either the witness, his attorney, the defendant's attorney, or the petitioner himself, the defendant himself can sign a certification saying to his best knowledge that this was an accurate statement of what the witness would testify to. So I think it is an effort, again, not to take anyone's rights away from him but also to help that defendant in the processing of his appeal and hopefully to make it easier for him to obtain a hearing, which we want him to obtain.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Grayson

2. “The test for determining whether a prospective juror should be disqualified is whether he is willing and able to eliminate the influence of any scruples and render a verdict according to the evidence, and this is to be determined on the basis of answers to questions and demeanor. ... It must be determined whether any biases or prejudices can be put aside on proper instruction of the court. ... A challenge for cause should be granted when the prospective juror has such a close relationship, familial, financial, or situational, with the parties, counsel, victims, or witnesses that the court will presume a likelihood of prejudice or demonstrates a likelihood of prejudice by his or her conduct or answers to questions.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2017 Pa. Super. 141 - Commonwealth v. Rush