Rhodes v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently April 2012 · most notably Smith v. Commonwealth (1990), Monroe v. Angelone (2003)
3 federal appellate · 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 Burks v. United States · Greene v. Massey · Epperly v. Commonwealth · Akers v. Commonwealth · Giarratano 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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“As our decision in that case illustrates, we will affirm a conviction of premeditated murder, even though based upon wholly circumstantial evidence, whenever we can say that the reasonable import of such evidence, considered as a whole, is sufficient to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused was the criminal agent and that he acted with a premeditated intent to kill.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a reasoning process antecedent to the act of killing,”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing”
2 later decisions 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.