Brewer v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 56 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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “improper, prejudicial[,] and egregious as to have undermined the overall fairness of the proceedings.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Bowling v. Commonwealth · State v. Larrabee

2. “For an error to be palpable, it must be easily perceptible, plain, obvious and readily noticeable. A palpable error must involve prejudice more egregious than that occurring in reversible error. A palpable error must be so grave in nature that if it were uncorrected, it would seriously affect the fairness of the proceedings. Thus, what a palpable error analysis boils down to is whether the reviewing court believes there is a substantial possibility that the result in the case would have been different without the error. If not, the error cannot be palpable, (internal quotations and footnotes omitted).”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Clark v. Commonwealth · Nami Res. Co. v. Asher Land & Mineral, Ltd.

3. “a misnomer, an oxymoron. The rule is that a police officer may testify about information furnished to him only where it tends to explain the action that was taken by the police officer as a result of this information and the taking of that action is an issue in the case. Such information is then admissible, not to prove the facts told to the police officer, but only to prove why the police officer then acted as he did. It is admissible only if there is an issue about the police officer's action.”

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