Stephens v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
55 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 55 later decisions — most recently July 2019 · most notably O'Dell v. Commonwealth (1988), Godfrey v. Commonwealth (1984)
55 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 Brooks v. Peyton · Butts v. Commonwealth · Flanary v. Commonwealth · Fowlkes v. Commonwealth · 155 W. Va. 674 - State Ex Rel . Spadafore v. Fox, Judge
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 55 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“As the Court noted in Stephens: When the defendant filed his motion to suppress he was not asking for a speedy trial. It was an act which necessitated a slowdown of the judicial process. What the defendant desired was favorable action on this motion and dismissal of the prosecution. At that stage, defendant did not seek a trial on the merits of his case but rather a final disposition of the case on his pretrial motion. Obviously he was pinning all his hopes upon the strength of his arguments, oral and written, made to the trial judge in support of his motion to suppress, and he did not want precipitate action. He wanted careful consideration by the court.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“shall be forever discharged from prosecution”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The truth is the statute never meant by its enumeration of exceptions, or excuses for failure to try, to exclude others of a similar nature or in pari ratione; but only to enact if the Commonwealth was in default for three terms without any of the excuses for the failure enumerated in the statute, or such like excuses, fairly inaplicable by the Courts from the reason and spirit of the law, the prisoner should be entitled to his discharge.””
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.