Commonwealth v. Barker’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

33 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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The parties were entitled to have the case decided only upon the evidence that was introduced at the trial. It was the duty of the judge to determine whether the rights of the defendant were adversely affected by the publication. Much must be left to the discretion of the trial judge, and his denial of the motion [for a mistrial] implies a finding that the defendant had not been prejudiced. The action of the judge cannot be said to constitute an abuse of sound judicial discretion.... Moreover, the judge ... instructed the jury that if any of them had read newspaper articles concerning the case he should disregard what he had read. The defendant's counsel was apparently satisfied with the instruction and asked for nothing further.... In any event, we must assume that the jury followed the instructions.”

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