Commonwealth v. Petrillo’s Empirical Analysis
1941
Citation profile
115 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 123 later decisions — most recently August 2017 · most notably Commonwealth v. Burdell (1955), Commonwealth v. Simmons (1948)
115 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 Commonwealth v. Williams · Commonwealth v. Fugmann · Commonwealth v. Quaranta · Commonwealth v. Parker · Commonwealth v. Petrillo
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 123 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“No witness can be contradicted on everything he testifies to in order to `test his credibility. The pivitol issues in a trial cannot be sidetracked' for the determination of whether or not a witness lied in making a statement about something which has no relationship to the case on trial. The purpose of trials is not to determine the ratings of witnesses for general veracity. A witness can be contradicted only on matters germane to the issue trying. There is no rule more firmly established. . . . (Emphasis in the original.)”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage““The only true test [of ‘collateralness’] is * * * ‘Could the fact, as to which error is predicated, have been shown in evidence" for any purpose independently of the contradiction?’ ””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“by the witness either on direct or cross-examination: Wigmore on Evidence, 3rd ed., Vol. 3, page 672, sec. 1007. Wigmore (supra) says in section 1003.”
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.