Commonwealth v. Medalis’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently November 1994
17 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 Commonwealth v. Miles · Commonwealth v. Kelly · Commonwealth v. Passarella
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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“1. Except as provided in subsections 4 and 5, any person who drives a vehicle upon a highway in this state shall be deemed to have given his consent to a chemical test of his blood, urine, breath to other bodily substance for the purpose of determining the alcoholic content of his blood or the presence of a controlled substance when such a test is adminstered at the direction of a police officer having reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be tested was driving a vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or a controlled substance and: (a) After he was arrested for any offense allegedly committed while he was driving a vehicle under the influence of intoxicating liquor or a controlled substance; or (b) He is dead, unconscious or otherwise in a condition rendering him incapable of being arrested. 2. The person arrested must be informed that his failure to submit to such a test will result in the suspension of his privilege to drive a vehicle for a period of 6 months.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Since Medalis’ behavior in failing to provide the necessary breath sample was tantamount to a refusal to submit to a breathalyzer test, it became incumbent upon him to establish that he was physically unable to submit to the test....”
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.