Fletcher v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently December 2015
18 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 Dawkins v. Commonwealth · Bryant v. Commonwealth · Russo v. Commonwealth · Martin v. Commonwealth · Roark v. Commonwealth
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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Under ordinary circumstances, an intent to maim may not be presumed from a blow with a bare fist. But an assault with a bare fist may be attended with such circumstances of violence and brutality that an intent to kill may be presumed. Here the evidence shows that the assault with the bare fist was attended with such circumstances of violence and brutality that an intent to maim, disfigure or kill may be presumed.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[M]alice is implied by law from any willful, deliberate and cruel act against another, however sudden.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the intentional doing of a wrongful act without legal justification or excuse”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.