Commonwealth v. Thacker’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The accused is not only entitled to be heard by counsel, but also to have the arguments of his counsel considered by the jury in passing upon the evidence. Any material abridgment or interference with this right constitutes reversible error: Stewart v. Commonwealth, 117 Pa. 378 . Accordingly it is well settled that a trial judge may not instruct the jurors that they are not to consider the arguments of counsel: Com. v. Polichinus, 229 Pa. 311 , or refer to such arguments contemptuously: Com. v. Brown, 309 Pa. 515 . However, as we said in Com. v. Polichinus, supra (p. 314) : ‘A trial judge may properly instruct the jury that the arguments of counsel are not binding upon them, and that they are only to be guided by such arguments in so far as they are supported by the evidence and appeal to their reason and judgment.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 234 Pa. Super. 21 - Commonwealth v. Mitchell