Johnson v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently April 2003
2 federal appellate · 16 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 North Carolina v. Pearce · North Carolina v. Rice · Somerville v. Illinois · Johnson v. Moses · State v. Sparrow
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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Instead, the State gives an accused the benefit of two full opportunities for acquittal in the long run interest of speedy trial in the county court and reducing the load of the circuit court. If an accused elects to take advantage of a second and fresh opportunity, it appears entirely fair that the accused and the State should start again at parity, as contemplated under the Virginia procedure.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“In these cases, the defendants' appeal to the circuit court was not predicated or dependent on error in the trial in the county court. In fact, their appeal to the circuit court was not an appeal in the usual sense of the word. Rather, the defendants' 'appeal' was an exercise of the unqualified right to a trial de novo, which gave them a second full opportunity for acquittal.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“To view the Virginia procedure as forcing an accused to lose the 'benefit' of the county court sentence and as 'chilling' his right to appeal begs the point. The State could constitutionally afford an accused the right to only one original trial. One trial in the circuit court would satisfy all constitutional guarantees.”
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.