Lane v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently April 2009 · most notably Epperly v. Commonwealth (1982), Vo v. Superior Court (1992)
32 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 Bowie v. Commonwealth · 77 Cal. App. 2d 621 - People v. Chavez · Jackson v. Commonwealth · Coleman v. Coleman · 33 Ala. App. 536 - Singleton v. State
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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he defendant, who was 17 years of age . . . was at home alone on May 8, 1976 when she began to suffer stomach pains. She associated the pains with constipation for which she had recently been treated. She decided to take a hot bath and, while soaking in the tub, felt the urge to use the toilet. While seated on the toilet seat, a “white bubble” emerged from her vagina and burst. Defendant then looked down and saw a baby’s head protruding from her body. She moved to the edge of the toilet seat, and as the delivery process continued she removed the baby and cradled it as it came out. She noticed that the baby did not cry, was not breathing, did not move or open its eyes, and that it began turning bluish-purple. In an attempt to induce breathing, she turned the child up and spanked it on its bottom as she had seen this done on television, but the child did not respond. She then wrapped the infant in a towel, along with the placenta, which was still attached to the infant by the umbilical cord and laid it on her bed. Defendant then returned to the bathroom to clean herself and the bathroom. After accomplishing this, she placed the blood-soaked towels and a bath mat in a garbage pail. She then put the garbage pail with its contents and the baby into a large plastic garbage bag and tied it at the top. As defendant was taking the garbage bag out of the house, her brother and mother arrived. When the brother asked defendant what was in the bag, she gave an evasive answer. Defendant”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“We hold that the evidence was insufficient to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the child's death was caused by a criminal act of the defendant and that the corpus delicti had not been proved”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]o hold that the child's death was caused by the criminal act or acts of the defendant would be contrary to the medical evidence and amount to pure speculation and surmise.”
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.