Mason v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
76 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 86 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2010 · most notably Fox v. Custis (1988), Stamper v. Commonwealth (1979)
76 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 Gregg v. Georgia · Jurek v. Texas · Proffitt v. Florida · Johnson v. United States · United States Smith v. Baldi
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 86 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The penalty of death shall not be imposed unless the Commonwealth shall prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is a probability based upon evidence of the prior history of the defendant or of the circumstances surrounding the commission of the offense of which he is accused that he would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing serious threat to society, or that his conduct in committing the offense was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman, in that it involved torture, depravity of mind or aggravated battery to the victim.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A motion for disqualification [of a judge] must be made when the movant learns the grounds upon which the motion is based; thereafter, the motion comes too late.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“set on fire while still alive, although in extremis.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Jones v. Murray
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.