2016 Pa. Super. 164 - Commonwealth v. Witmayer’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The admission of evidence is solely within the discretion of the trial court, and a trial court's evidentiary rulings will be reversed on appeal only upon an abuse of that discretion. An abuse of discretion will not be found based on a mere error of judgment, but rather occurs where the court has reached a conclusion that overrides or misapplies the law, or where the judgment exercised is manifestly unreasonable, or the result of partiality, prejudice, bias or ill-will.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2017 Pa. Super. 118 - Commonwealth v. McGriff · Commonwealth v. Manivannan

2. “is a pervasive scheme of legislation which suspends an individual's constitutional rights to privacy only for the limited purpose of permitting law enforcement officials, upon a showing of probable cause, to gather evidence necessary to bring about a criminal prosecution and conviction. The statute sets forth clearly and unambiguously by whom and under what circumstances these otherwise illegal practices and their derivative fruits may be used. However, the Wiretap Act contains an exception allowing law enforcement to utilize wiretaps without obtaining prior judicial approval when one of the parties to the conversation consents to the interception: § 5704. Exceptions to prohibition of interception and disclosure of communications It shall not be unlawful and no prior court approval shall be required under this chapter for: * * * (2) Any investigative or law enforcement officer or any person acting at the direction or request of an investigative or law enforcement officer to intercept a wire, electronic or oral communication involving suspected criminal activities, including, but not limited to, the crimes enumerated in section 5708 (relating to order authorizing interception of wire, electronic or oral communications), where: * * * (ii) one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception. However, no interception under this paragraph shall be made unless the Attorney General or a deputy attorney general designated in writing by the Attorney Ge”

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

3. “a condition precedent to the exercise by a single county to [venue] in a case involving multiple offenses in various counties is: the offense must constitute a single criminal episode. If a number of charges are logically or temporally related and share common issues of law and fact, a single criminal episode exists. When we ascertain whether a number of statutory offenses are "logically related" to one another, the court should initially inquire as to whether there is a substantial duplication of factual, and/or legal issues presented by the offenses. The mere fact that the additional statutory offenses involve additional issues of law or fact is not sufficient to create a separate criminal episode since the logical relationship test does not require an absolute identity of factual backgrounds. The temporal relationship between criminal acts will be a factor which frequently determines whether the acts are "logically related." However, the definition of a "single criminal episode" should not be limited to acts which are immediately connected in time. "Transaction" is a word of flexible meaning. It may comprehend a series of many occurrences, depending not so much upon the immediateness of their connection as upon their logical relationship.”

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