Commonwealth v. Duncan’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 51 later decisions — most recently November 2023 · most notably 139 Wis. 2d 397 - Bachowski v. Salamone (1987), United States v. Elmore (1997)
3 federal appellate · 47 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 Grayned v. City of Rockford · Roth v. United States · Miller v. California · Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire · United States v. Harriss
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 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]t is well understood that the right of free speech is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances. There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which has never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or ‘fighting’ words — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““A person commits a summary offense when, with intent to harass, annoy or alarm another person: * * • * * * * (2) he follows a person in or about a public place or places; or (3) he engages in a course of conduct or repeatedly commits acts which alarm or seriously annoy such other person and which serve no legitimate purpose.” 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 2709.”
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.