Commonwealth v. Richardson’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. “1. Are there any people on the jury who are prejudiced in any way against black people? 2. [Defendant] is a black man who is charged with raping a white woman. Because of the races of the two parties involved in this case, do you think you would have any difficulty being fair to either side? 3. Do you believe that black people are generally more dishonest than white people? 4. Do you believe black men like to rape white women? 5. If the woman were to testify that the incident happened one way and [defendant] would testify that the incident happened in an entirely different way, would you tend to believe the testimony of the complainant merely because she was white?”

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

2. “I have just been advised that the victim in this case was a white person. You see that the defendant is black. Would these racial differences present such a problem to you that it could interfere with your honest appraisal of the case and interfere with your ability to be completely fair to both the Commonwealth and the Defendant?”

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

3. “any people on the jury . . . are prejudiced in any way against black people”

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