Moehring v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2010 · most notably Wright v. West (1992), Frye v. Commonwealth (1986)
29 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 Hudson v. Louisiana · Dunlavey v. Commonwealth · Foster v. Commonwealth · Skeeter v. Commonwealth · Castle v. Commonwealth
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The Commonwealth’s evidence and the reasonable inferences deducible from that evidence do not establish that Moehring aided Faison in the theft or that he shared Faison’s intent to deprive Keeling of his truck. All that the prosecution proved was that two men were observed walking south along Route 17 in the early morning hours of March 23,1980; that each was attempting to “thumb” a ride from passing motorists; that one of the men, Faison, apparently despaired of success, left his fellow hitchhiker and went across the highway and stole a truck; that the other man, Moehring, continued walking and “thumbing”; and that some minutes later Moehring was given a ride in the stolen truck. When Faison committed his larceny of the truck, Moehring was across a double-lane highway some distance from the scene. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to regard him as a “lookout,” or an accessory before the fact. And the mere acceptance by Moehring of a ride in the stolen vehicle (and like acceptance by another hitchhiker who was acquitted of the larceny of the truck) did not in any way aid Faison. Taken in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, -the evidence fails to meet either the overt act or shared intent requirements of Triplett [v. Commonwealth, 141 Va. 577 , 127 S.E. 486 (1925) ] and Murray, supra. Because larceny is a continuing offense, anyone who knows that personal property is stolen and assists in its transportation or disposition is guilty of larceny. Dunlavey v. Com”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The Commonwealth relies on the theory of joint exclusive possession of recently stolen property. But, giving the Commonwealth the benefit of all reasonable inferences, as we must, we conclude that the evidence fails to establish joint exclusive possession. There must be evidence of joint control to justify the inference of joint possession. The Commonwealth presented no evidence that [Burgess] exercised any degree of dominion or control over the [stolen vehicle.] The evidence of [Burgess’s] mere presence in the stolen vehicle is not enough to support a conviction of [Burgess] as a princi pal in the second degree.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.