Commonwealth v. Hall’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

18 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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Unquestionably, confrontations in which a single suspect is viewed in the custody of the police are highly suggestive. Whatever the police actually say to the viewer, it must be apparent to him that they think they have caught the villain. Doubtless a man seen in handcuffs or through the grill of a police wagon looks more like a crook than the same man standing at ease and at liberty. There may also be unconscious or overt pressures on the witness to cooperate with the police by confirming their suspicions. And the viewer may have been emotionally unsettled by the experience of the fresh offense. Yet, on the other hand, recognition of a person or face would seem to be as much the product of a subjective mental image as of articulable, consciously remembered characteristics. A man may see clearly in his “mind’s eye” a face or a figure which he is hard put to describe adequately in words. Though the image of an “unforgettable face” may occasionally linger without any translation into words, photographic recall is most often ephemeral. Vivid in the flash of direct observation, it fades rapidly with time. And the conscious attempt to separate the ensemble impression into particular verbalized features, in order to preserve some recollection, may well distort the original accurate image so that it is the verbalized characteristics which are remembered and not the face or the man. Balancing all the doubts left by the mysteries of human perception and recognition, it appears that pr”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 255 Pa. Super. 289 - Commonwealth v. Aaron

2. ““While on-the-scene confrontations may well be permissible without the benefit of counsel, when the scene changes or when the time becomes late, our view must be governed by Wade . When an identification takes place at a hospital, the victim no longer has the scene clearly in view. The background has changed, the lighting is different, the suspect against the bland walls is more vivid. The fact that the police have thought enough of the suspect to take him to the hospital bears on the victim’s mind. In short, the possibility of both suggestion and misidentification increase perceptibly. Where the victim is not in extremis, there is no reason not to wait until a formal line-up with counsel can be arranged at the hospital or, as in this case, until the victim can be brought to the police station where a formal line-up with counsel can be held.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 255 Pa. Super. 289 - Commonwealth v. Aaron