320 Pa. Super. 533 - Commonwealth v. Middleton’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
43 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 43 later decisions — most recently August 2020 · most notably 340 Pa. Super. 318 - Commonwealth v. Hassine (1985), 339 Pa. Super. 32 - Commonwealth v. Hernandez (1985)
43 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 Furman v. Georgia · Solem v. Helm · Woodson v. North Carolina · Enmund v. Florida · Rummel v. Estelle
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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Because the testimony is relevant to events close in time and place to the shooting of [the victim], it tends to demonstrate the appellant’s criminal intent with regard to the shooting. Moreover, the testimony shows the appel lant’s continued association with [Pew] and participation in further criminal acts that evening. As such it tends to rebut the appellant’s assertion that he lacked the necessary state of mind to establish second degree murder____”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“When an actor engages in one of the statutorily enumerated felonies and a killing occurs, the law, via the felony-murder rule, allows the finder of fact to infer the killing was malicious from the fact the actor was engaged in a felony of such a dangerous nature to human life because the actor, as held to the standard of a reasonable man, knew or should have known that death might result from the felony, (footnote omitted)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The offense of felony-murder is undoubtedly one of the gravest and most serious which can be committed. The taking of a life during the commission of an enumerated felony demonstrates a disregard for the property, safety, sanctity, integrity, and especially, the life of the victim. It is a crime of archviolence. Clearly, such an offense merits a severe penalty.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.