259 Pa. Super. 314 - Commonwealth v. Fowler’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently December 2021
10 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 Swain v. State of Alabama · Allen v. United States · Commonwealth v. Perkins · Commonwealth v. Spencer · Commonwealth v. Maloney
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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(a) Before the jury retires for deliberation, the court may give an instruction which informs the jury: (i) that in order to return a verdict, each juror must agree thereto; (ii) that jurors have a duty to consult with one another and to deliberate with a view to reaching an agreement, if it can be done without violence to individual judgment; (iii) that each juror must decide the case for himself, but only after an impartial consideration of the evidence with his fellow jurors; (iv) that in the course of deliberations, a juror should not hesitate to reexamine his own views and change his opinion if convinced it is erroneous; and (v)that no juror should surrender his honest conviction as to the weight or effect of the evidence solely because of the opinion of his fellow jurors, or for the mere purpose of returning a verdict. (b) If it appears to the court that the jury has been unable to agree, the court may require the jury to continue their deliberations and may give or repeat an instruction as provided in subsection (a). The court shall not require or threaten to require the juty to deliberate for an unreasonable length of time or for unreasonable intervals.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the judge expressed his displeasure with the jury’s indecision on the aggravated assault charge when he told them [sic] that “this case is about as straightforward as you can ever get ... this has been a short trial, the evidence is quite clear, you have one or two people to believe basically ... I’m not going to hang you on that charge.” Through this statement, the judge virtually conveyed his own opinion that appellant should be found guilty of aggravated assault. Moreover, as previously stated by this court, “individual jurors might have concluded ... that the court was threaten ing them with the wrath of God should they bring in a verdict of not guilty.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“I think you have to go back out again and start deliberating again. Make sure that you have this done right.”
1 later decision 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.