Boykins v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
59 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 59 later decisions — most recently May 2016 · most notably Higginbotham v. Commonwealth (1975), 12 Va. App. 1003 - Lavinder v. Commonwealth (1991)
59 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 Wright v. Commonwealth · LaPrade v. Commonwealth · Abdell v. Commonwealth · Coffey v. Commonwealth · Carson 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 59 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““[I]f the proof relied upon by the Commonwealth is wholly circumstantial, as it here is, then to establish guilt beyond a reason able doubt all necessary circumstances proved must be consistent with guilt and inconsistent with innocence. They must overcome the presumption of innocence and exclude all reasonable conclusions inconsistent with that of guilt. To accomplish that, the chain of necessary circumstances must be unbroken and the evidence as a whole must satisfy the guarded judgment that both the corpus delicti and the criminal agency of the accused have been proved to the exclusion of any other rational hypothesis and to a moral certainty. Yet what inferences are to be drawn from proved facts is within the province of the jury and not the court so long as the inferences are reasonable and justified.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he burden is upon the Commonwealth to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that motive, time, place, means, and conduct concur in pointing out the accused as the perpetrator of the crime.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The better doctrine, supported by the clear weight of authority, is that . . . flight . . . does not measure up to the standard of presumptive evidence of guilt, but is merely evidence tending to show guilt, to be considered by the jury and given such weight as [it] deem[s] proper in connection with other pertinent and material facts and circumstances in the case.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Turman v. Com.
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.