317 Pa. Super. 118 - Commonwealth v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently March 2012
11 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 Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Rideout v. United States · California v. Arizona · Wyrick v. Fields · Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co.
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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The polygraph has been acknowledged by the courts of this Commonwealth to be a valuable tool in the investigative process. See: Commonwealth v. Hernandez, 498 Pa. 405, 415 , 446 A.2d 1268,1273 (1982); Commonwealth v. Smith, 487 Pa. 626, 631 , 410 A.2d 787, 790 (1980); Commonwealth v. Blagman, 458 Pa. 431, 435-436 , 326 A.2d 296, 298-299 (1974). Its use does not per se render a confession involuntary. Commonwealth v. Jones, 341 Pa. 541, 548 , 19 A.2d 389, 393 (1941); Commonwealth v. Hipple, 333 Pa. 33, 39 , 3 A.2d 353, 355-356 (1939). See: Thompson v. Cox, 352 F.2d 488 (10th Cir.1965); United States v. McDevitt, 328 F.2d 282 (6th Cir.1964). A confession is not involuntary merely because it was made in anticipation of, during, or following a polygraph examination. See: 89 ALR3d 236, and cases there gathered. In Pennsylvania, an inculpatory statement made during a pre-test interview was held admissible in Commonwealth v. Cain, 471 Pa. 140, 146 , 369 A.2d 1234 (1974) (Opinion of Eagen, J., in support of affirmance). Other decisions have impliedly found Miranda warnings adequate, for they have permitted evidentiary use of confessions when they have been made voluntarily in polygraph settings. See also: Commonwealth v. Hernandez, supra; Commonwealth v. Hitson, 482 Pa. 404 , 393 A.2d 1169 (1978); Commonwealth v. Dussinger, 478 Pa. 182 , 386 A.2d 500 (1978) (plurality opinion); Commonwealth v. Cunningham, 471 Pa. 577 , 370 A.2d 1172 (1977); Commonwealth v. Cain, supra; Commonwealth v”
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.