Saunders v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
52 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 52 later decisions — most recently August 2012 · most notably Derr v. Commonwealth (1991), Waye v. Commonwealth (1979)
52 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 Aguilar v. Texas · Brinegar v. United States · Spinelli v. United States · Jones v. United States · Beck v. State of Ohio
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 52 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The rule in Virginia is well established that a judgment will not be reversed for the admission of evidence or for a statement of counsel which the court afterwards directs the jury to disregard unless there is a manifest probability that the evidence or statement has been prejudicial to the adverse party. A different rule would result in fixing an intolerable handicap upon the nisi prius court. Washington and Old Dominion Ry. v. Ward’s Admr., 119 Va. 334, 339 , 89 S.E. 140, 142 (1916). Conversely, as an exception to the rule, if the prejudicial effect of the impropriety cannot be removed by the instructions of the trial court, the defendant is entitled to a new trial. Coffey v. Commonwealth, 188 Va. 629, 636 , 51 S.E.2d 215, 218 (1949).”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Probable cause, as the very name implies, deals with probabilities. These are not technical; they are the factual and practical considerations in every day life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act. Probable cause exists when the facts and circumstances within the arresting officer’s knowledge and of which he has reasonable trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense had been or is being committed.”
3 later decisions 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.