Commonwealth v. Jackson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 state decisions

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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““[W]e do not see any support in the record before us for the judge’s finding that the officer was negligent in failing to notify anyone of his National Guard duty. There is no indication whether the officer had been informed of the trial date prior to the issuance of the summons, whether the summons was served before or after he left for active duty, or whether he had arranged or reasonably expected that another officer within the police department would timely explain his inability to appear on the scheduled trial date. . . . “Additionally, although the judge found that the officer’s conduct was prejudicial to the defendant, the only fact on this record to lend support to that finding is that the defendant’s five witnesses were present. We do not minimize the inconvenience caused by the turn of events, but we do not view that fact, standing alone, as sufficient to constitute prejudice justifying dismissal of the complaints.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 87 Mass. App. Ct. 183 - Commonwealth v. Butler