341 Pa. Super. 123 - Commonwealth v. Bryant’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently January 2011
9 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 In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Patterson v. New York · Commonwealth v. Bonomo · Commonwealth v. DiFrancesco · Commonwealth v. McNeil
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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““a State must prove every ingredient of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt and that it may not shift the burden of proof to the defendant by presuming that ingredient upon proof of the other elements of the offense.” To hold that the prosecution had satisfied its burden, we believe, would have required the trier of fact to make an unwarranted inference of the presumed fact (nonlicensure under section 6106(a)) from the proven fact of appellant’s nonlicensure in the City of Beaver Falls. This presumption, being a procedural device adhered to in Pennsylvania, not only permits an inference of the “presumed” fact, but also shifts to the opposing party the burden of producing evidence to disprove the presumed fact. Failure to meet this burden of production will normally result in binding instructions on the issue of the presumed fact’s existence in favor of the party invoking the presumption. But the notion of a directed verdict against a criminal defendant is contrary to accepted tenets of criminal justice. Placing the burden of production on a defendant under the threat of such a sanction would run afoul of the presumption of innocence, see Commonwealth v. Bonomo, 396 Pa. 222, 229-230 , 151 A.2d 441, 445-446 (1959), as well as the defendant’s privilege of declining to testify. Thus, where the presumed fact comprises an element of the crime charged, the inference authorized by a presumption can never be compelled by the court. See generally Commonwealth v. Turner, 456 Pa. 116 , ”
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.