Edwards v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

26 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ “The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor — indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one. “ ‘It is fair to say that the average jury, in a greater or less degree, has confidence that these obligations, which so plainly rest upon the prosecuting attorney, will be faithfully observed. Consequently, improper suggestions, insinuations, and, especially, assertions of personal knowledge are apt to carry much weight against the accused when they should properly carry none.’””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Tinsley v. Commonwealth · Faulkner v. Commonwealth

2. “(W)here the defendant's life is at stake, technical rules of procedure must give way to the more lofty aim that justice may be done.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Ramirez · Ice v. Commonwealth

3. ““* * * where the defendant’s life is at stake, technical rules of procedure must give way to the more lofty .aim that justice may be done. As said by the Supreme Court, in Brown v. (State of) Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278 , 56 S. Ct. 461, 465 , 80 L. Ed. 682 : “ ‘The duty of maintaining constitutional rights of a person on trial for his life rises above mere rules of procedure, and wherever the court is clearly satisfied that such violations exist, it will refuse to sanction such violations and will apply the corrective.’ .“It is far more important to society and constitutional government that the accused be accorded a fair and impartial trial than that he be required to forfeit his life in expiation of his crime, no matter how guilty the facts fairly adduced might have proven him to have been. * * *””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Anderson v. Commonwealth