Fisher v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 132 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 145 later decisions — most recently July 2017 · most notably Spencer v. Commonwealth (1989), Buchanan v. Commonwealth (1989)
3 federal appellate · 132 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 Energy Cooperative, Inc. v. Phillips Petroleum Co. · Triangle Improvement Council v. Ritchie · Sireci v. Florida · Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. Liberty Mutual Insurance · Quintana 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 145 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“to protect the trial court from appeals based upon undisclosed grounds, to prevent the setting of traps on appeal, to enable the trial judge to rule intelligently, and to avoid unnecessary reversals and mistrials.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[n]o litigant, even a defendant in a criminal case, will be permitted to approbate and reprobate to invite error ... and then to take advantage of the situation created by his own wrong.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“for a promise of one-third of the proceeds. Fisher promised Mulligan $38,000, more than one-third, because Mulligan was to do the actual killing. Fisher's plan was to go to Bedford County, Virginia, near the residence of his ex-wife, on the opening day of deer season in Virginia. Included in the party were to be Wilkey, Fisher, Mulligan, and Jody Ayers, a 16-year old son of Fisher's ex-wife, who was to be brought along to make their visit to Bedford County”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Fisher v. Angelone
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.