Commonwealth v. Simms’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The defendant has entered the defense that he was insane at the time the alleged offense was committed. “In' deciding whether the defendant has met his burden of proving insanity by a fair preponderance of the evidence, you should consider all of the evidence offered by both sides as to his actions and conduct. “But, you must make that decision: that is, whether the defendant has convinced you by a preponderance of the evidence that at the time of the alleged deeds, commission of the deeds, the defendant was in an acute psychotic state so as to be, at that time, incapable of knowing what he was doing, and if he did know what he was doing, - he was incapable of judging that it was wrong to do so.””

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

2. ““It is next complained that the trial court erred in its instructions to the jury on the burden of proof as to the issue of insanity. In the course of the charge, the court stated, in part, that the accused had the burden of proving insanity by the preponderance of the evidence and that the Commonwealth did not have to affirmatively prove sanity. Appellant argues that it was erroneous to so instruct the jury; however, this same contention was rejected by a majority of this Court in Commonwealth v. Vogel, [ 440 Pa. 1 (1970)] and nothing would be gained by further discussion here.” Id. at 393.”

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