Commonwealth v. Peterson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 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 1 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The obvious purpose of the burglary statute is to protect the sanctity of the building and the safety of the persons and contents within it. When that building is penetrated by an offender with the intent of committing an offense, in this case that of theft by removing the owner’s goods, it does not matter whether the entry was by the defendant’s fingernail, finger, hand or arm, nor by an instrument held and manipulated by those body parts. It is ... the opinion of this court that the entry into the structure only by the instrument of the coat hanger, under the facts of this case, constitutes an ‘entry’ under our present burglary statute. The entry by an instrument is also sufficient to constitute the necessary element of unlawful entry under ... criminal trespass.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 454 Pa. Super. 524 - Commonwealth v. Giddings