Smith v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Thus, the Commonwealth had to prove, among other things, that Smith did not make a reasonable effort to find the owner or custodian of the funeral home, and that he did not report to such person the specified information, or, if the owner or custodian could not be found, that Smith did not leave an informative note in a conspicuous place at the scene of the accident. No evidence, however, was introduced to prove these negatives.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hall v. Commonwealth